Round two of blogging for the day - earlier I stumbled across that nice quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but I can't resist a quick Christmas blurb to cyberspace. It's an ingrained habit, learned from countless repetition since childhood: for me to remember life's significant moments, I have to either talk endlessly about them or write about them. Like studying for a final - without the review, slowly, the little details go. And the little details are what I like to remember.
Like the chill of our still, dark house when I woke up at 7 - amazingly, I was the first person up. Never in my life have I been the first one awake on Christmas morning. Since I'm almost 20, I guess it's about time; still, usually I wake up to the sound of my mom and dad clattering in the kitchen. I boiled water for Russian tea on the stove and brushed my teeth. Greeting the silent, cold morning alone was rather... melancholy. When my parents padded up the stairs in their pajamas, the lights on the tree winked a bit more happily. Christmas truly is about family.
Details like cuddling with my 16-year-old fleece-covered sister - who was wearing Hello Kitty footie pajamas - wrapped in a blanket as we opened our stockings. Watching the yule log flicker, like we do every year, and pretending to feel the warmth from its TV image.
Like my sister parading around the house in her footie pajamas, holding her guitar strapped to her body with a new black, glittery guitar strap. Like my mom staying in her bathrobe until noon.
Like my dad pouring over his new Oxford world atlas on the living room sofa for hours this afternoon, like a child with a new toy. Rarely do books capture attention like that anymore. I love it.
Like my mom cleaning up from our late-afternoon meal sporting an apron... and ipod headphones. The grand surprise this Christmas was my mom's gift of an ipod from Santa Claus. Of course, with Ashley's help the ipod is chock full of games and music, and my sweet overwhelmed mother is still learning how to turn the thing on.
December 25th is a special holiday. I know that Jesus was probably born in the spring, and that our beloved Christmas traditions have pagan roots. I realize that America has commercialized and cheapened the sacred elements of the holiday. But I also know that as my family enjoys the relatively routine and traditional elements of Christmas - a candlelit church service, dinner out, games by the fire, Christmas picture books, delicious food, a tromp around the block in the snow, time to relax and reflect - there is a liturgical beauty to it all. The routine is our way of celebrating Jesus's incarnation. Through our traditions we remember his coming. Perhaps the ham and twice-baked potatoes, the elaborate tree, the Frank Sinatra in the background are peripheral elements to what should be a more spiritual holiday. Yet, I celebrate Jesus in it all, just as I hold all those things good. Jesus has made this possible - family, the enjoyment of what he's given us, thanking him for the beauty of a winter day - and I am indebted forever.
Jesus came to give us abundant life, to be "the image of an unseen God", to live and love and die so that God was glorified. In this, we have hope.
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