It is Christmas morning and I am sitting here with sentimental tears streaming down my cheeks and dripping off my chin. Yet I am at peace and my heart is full of thanks!
Outside it is -34C. The sun is shining and if you look into its rays, with a dark background behind, you can see the ice crystals falling like tiny stars…it is beautiful.
The aspen branches are coated with a silvery frost and the fir tree branches have enormous swirls of snow smothering them and pulling them earthward…it is truly a 3-D Christmas card.
I have listened to the Queen’s address to the Commonwealth and applauded her message, I have eaten my lunch of scrambled eggs and green peppers (A Christmas tradition in our house…but a lonely meal for one person) and opened my six presents under the tree (three books, a box of chocolates and another of home-made candy…I must limit myself to one a day.) And one of my “bible study” ladies gave me a silver angel with a bell in it…not the tinkle kind but a rather loud bell…she said it is for times I have trouble getting the group to settle down…won’t they be startled the first time they hear it?
In thirty minutes daughter Robin will come by and drive me out to the acreage for Christmas dinner…lots of chatter, shared memories of Christmas past, food and festivities. Daughter Lyn was to join us but has the flu. The telephone wires were busy as we shared our greetings and she sniffled back her replies. She is feeling a mite better.
It is a good day…or as a 4-year-old Lyn, my optimist always said, ”It’s a good day, it’s not raining.” And it is a good day and my memories of past Christmases just make me smile as I recall the fifty-four Christmas breakfasts Harry made through all those years we were together…they tasted delicious but he used every pot in the kitchen and I recall the times he borrowed a Santa suit and chased through the neighbourhood bellowing out Christmas greetings. These are golden memories that wipe away some of my loneliness.
Christmas Eve service last night was full of music, crying babies and little children running up the aisle. A young man in front of me had his arm around his sweetheart and mothers chased run away children and grandma’s grinned, remembering similar situations years back.
I think God was smiling!
Perhaps more than any service during the church year, the Christmas Eve service best represents what Church is really all about…the togetherness of all ages, the hopes for the future and the memories of the past. All of us there…families with frailties, families with hope, families with the desire to meet Christ again, to feel His presence and to be assured of His love.
And He was there! Praise God!
