I wrote this post a decade ago and posted it on Christmas Day 2010 and thought you might like to read it today.
Many of us (my family and I included) won't be celebrating Christmas this year the way we've celebrated it in this past.
But that doesn't mean the celebration won't have equal (or greater) value than celebrations in years past.
This particular Christmas Eve a decade ago was rather bleak. And then I did something that changed the bleakness and made this particular night one of my most favorite memories.
May this post help inspire you to stretch your creativity and make this holiday season the best so far.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Five Minutes on Christmas Eve
As I'm writing this, I get a phone call from my nearly seventeen year old daughter Rebekah. She and her fifteen year old brother Daniel and my husband Ron are done rolling newspapers and are heading home. Communion bread for this morning's Divine Liturgy is rising in the oven, and soon I'll be out in the van throwing newspapers.
This is not how we used to spend our Christmases.
Years ago, when my six children were very young, Christmas Eve meant getting together with my first husband's side of the family and enjoying a special Christmas Eve dinner of twelve traditional dishes, that represented the twelve apostles. We continued that tradition up until this year when the timing of Christmas as per the newspaper schedule and everyone's work commitments made such a gathering impossible.
Then the Holy Spirit tapped me on the shoulder as I was getting ready for bed last night, at the ungodly hour of seven o'clock (It's ungodly when you rise at midnight). I hollered down the stairs for Daniel, but he had left with my oldest son Christopher to pick up my daughter-in-law Cassie from work. So, I phoned my twenty-year-old son Timothy, who was still stuffing Sunday inserts for their customers with Rebekah.
After making sure they were near each other, I asked Timothy to put me on speaker phone. He did, and I read from the Gospel of Luke, beginning with Gabriel's appearance to Mary and ending with the shepherds. When I finished, there was a chorus of excited voices. My kids were not alone in the warehouse.
A number of other carriers were spending their Christmas Eve there, too, preparing for Sunday so they could spend Christmas Day with their families and had been touched by the reading. Timothy said, "Now it feels like Christmas. Thank you for reminding us of the reason for the season."
Whatever the reason for YOUR celebration this day, have a
blessed and merry Christmas!
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