Photo by Pete Hamlin
The most wonderful time of the year has rolled around again, with all of its colors, scents and sounds. Chestnuts roast on an open fire, and sleigh bells jing-jing-jingle through a winter wonderland, as we gaze enraptured upon city sidewalks dressed in holiday style. What other holiday has such an extensive repertoire of music dedicated to promoting comfort and joy? Christmas music, both sacred and secular, is one of the few remaining unifying traditions of western culture. It’s a small miracle we take for granted, that people from the largest eastern city to the smallest rural Midwestern hamlet know the words to common carols and can sing along together, just as most of the citizens of the United States used to know the words to sacred hymns, or understand references to scripture.
The year of my birth saw one of the first animated Christmas specials produced by network television, A Charlie Brown Christmas. By the time I was five or six, and old enough to clamor for it, the cartoon was a highlight of my holiday season, as it was to children nationwide. Not only were we inspired to consider the beauty of Christmas by Linus and his ‘little tree that could,’ we were introduced to an up and coming classic song, “Christmas Time is Here.” The melody is pensive, the tone peaceful, and like most secular holiday songs the lyrics express a worthy ideal of congenial Christmas spirit.
"Christmas time is here,
Happiness and cheer,
Fun for all, that children call
Their favorite time of year.
Christmas time is here,
families drawing near,
Oh, that we could always see
such spirit through the year."*
It’s a lovely song expressing a lovely sentiment. But for many people, Christmas time is not always happy, fun and cheerful. The expectation that all troubles will cease around a certain date on the calendar can be a recipe for disappointment and disillusionment. Sometimes families fail to draw near; illness and loss dampen the spirit, and those who are lonely or depressed feel even more so, certain something is wrong with them because they feel disconnected and sad when they are supposed to be having a holly jolly time.
The year my husband and I married, my Grandmother passed away on Christmas Eve after a struggle with pancreatic cancer. My aunts and uncles spent the few months counting up to Christmas caring for her; watching their wonderful, selfless mother endure suffering and knowing they were saying their goodbyes. To expect that they or anyone in our family would feel happy and cheerful would have been ridiculous. It was a solemn gathering, a quiet Christmas Day where we reflected on all that her life had meant to us and grieved at how we would miss her.
We adopted our son when he was just an infant, and when he was five we welcomed two daughters into the family as well. They were no longer babies, but young children we adopted out of foster care. I wanted our first Christmas as a family of five to be perfect, of course. I spent weeks shopping, wrapping, decorating and baking. As it turned out, my husband opened presents with the two oldest, while my youngest, Kyla, and I spent the day in bed, miserable with flu. The best laid plans of mice and men, according to the poet Robert Burns, do indeed oft go astray.
Like most, I am sure, I am grateful to have had many Christmases filled with lights, concerts, parties and carols by candelight, with family dinners fireside, or nights playing cards and crying together over “It’s a Wonderful Life.” I’ve also been overwhelmed at times by taking on too much, had my joy robbed by self-imposed expectations, felt weary, weepy and taken for granted until I wished to cancel Christmas to sit on a tropical island! Alone, thank you very much!
I am certain I’m not the only one who is sometimes more likely to sing the blues at Christmas than to be “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” My mom tells about my Grandma Hattie sitting up late at night after a long day of work, wrapping gifts and crying her eyes out. Christmas celebration can be lighthearted and joyous, or stressful, depending on the expectations we bring to it.
But sometimes the yuletide might find us truly in the darkest days of our year, when the wind blows cold and it seems the sun will never shine again in our hearts.
Sometimes Christmas, for all of its tinsel, shines a harsh light on deeper wounds. When my mother, my sister, my daughter Kyla and I gathered to keep Christmas last year, I could not help but think of all those absent and feel a sense of my own inadequacy to make everything merry and bright. Twelve years of both my best efforts and my inevitable human frailties have not been enough for my oldest daughter, who is unable to maintain attachments and now estranged from our family by her own choice. She is confused, compelled to fight against love. Unable to believe in it and receive it, she has traded it for a false narrative of bitterness. Even now, as my repeated attempts to reach out and draw her into the family circle have been rebuffed, I hear the spirit say, “My grace is sufficient,” and I give her to God, because she is never beyond Him. But I hurt for her, even more than for our lost relationship. She remains absent from our lives.
Last Christmas, it was my husband’s turn to be sick with the flu. He spent the day in bed with a fever as I poured through a box of photos, crying for my son, who was absent as well. My bright, affectionate boy, with so many talents and so much promise, he’d spent the last three years spiraling downward due to the onset of a severe mood disorder, a genetic time bomb that took us all unaware. In spite of efforts to provide him treatment, he spent his birthday and Christmas detained for actions stemming from his mental state. Though I appreciated the warm circle I had, the women of my family, how could I truly celebrate, knowing his condition? For me, last Christmas was truly a dark night of the soul. The temptation to become a scrooge, to skip Christmas, was strong. And yet I could look at the promise of Christmas, and be hopeful through my pain.
` Now as I write this, it is hard to believe that a year has passed since one of the least merry Christmases I ever hope to spend! I have been grateful for the love of friends and the prayers of family. My beautiful mother is in good health at 86. My youngest daughter is growing in grace. My son is healing, my heart is lighter, and my husband and I have both had our flu shots!
This Christmas, as I enjoy the songs of the season, I think of those who are hurting, to whom these sugar-coated anthems to holiday perfection are salt in an open wound. My encouragement to you is that even when nothing is calm or bright, you are loved by a Father who sent his Son. Christmas is a message from above that you might feel lonely, but you are not alone. Christmas is a lifeline for the desperate, and comfort for the hurting, a gift waiting to be received. It is the Christ-child, God with us. It is the guiding star in the darkness, a fire to warm the spirit when life inevitably turns cold. It is better reflected in this verse of an 8th century carol, handed down from Latin to German and translated into English in 1851 by John Mason Neale: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”
O come, Thou Day-Spring
Come and cheer
Our spirits, by Thine advent here.
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel
Has come to thee, O Israel.
Wishing you Christmas Blessings!
Jennifer
* Guaraldi, V. & Mendelson, L. “Christmas Time Is Here.” 1965
* Lyrics retrieved 12/17/18 from https://castingcrowns.com/music/o-come-o-come-emmanuel/
