the night before Christmas

Not surprisingly, holidays are a tough time to live alone. Relative to the past month, my emotional health is tip-top; if not for the void created by not sharing time, gifts, and decorations with others, I would be feeling content. I decided against decorating my apartment this year. I think that these are moments meant to be shared.

I'm at work until 6am, but I do get to play Santa tonight for the girls (thankfully, minus the suit!) This is something I plan to enjoy someday -- crawling around in the wee hours of the night to place presents under my own tree. I recall the wonder of waking up on Christmas morning as a child. My parents would be watching the local choral music on TV, and mom would have cinnamon rolls or French toast ready. Dad would play it cool, as if he could wait all day to open gifts, but he was just as anxious as we were.

I still have two childhood Christmas gifts -- the two most destined for regular use. When I was 14 months old, I was given a stuffed monkey (George), who slept next to me without fail for the next ten years. He now sits on my loveseat, unevenly stuffed and ragged as he is. At age ten, I received an NES, which still functions with a dozen violent blows and a perfectly placed cartridge.

We usually followed our Christmas mornings with a trek to Grandma's. She passed away half of my lifetime ago, but most of my fond family memories still involve her. She used to take some of the turkey, batter it, and fry it, because she knew it was the only way I would eat it. We would sit at a long table -- all five of her children, with their spouses and children -- and feast all day long. However she ever made enough food for twenty or so, I'll never know, but there were always leftovers. These are the kinds of things that old grandmas loved. Her gift was having us together.

And then I realize that her position was not so different. Her kids gradually wanted to spend Christmas in their own homes, and my grandpa died before I was born. Holidays must have been awfully lonely for her. Here I always thought that she was the glue that kept the family together (and she was), but I can identify with the personal motivation to be with the ones you love. And it's not always that simple.

Tomorrow, I won't wake to wonder; I'll already be awake. I'll share three gifts with an immediate family that already has everything it needs and more. But somewhere between those cinnamon rolls and opening another DVD, we'll stop to read the Gospel, and remember how scary and alone it must have been for Mary, and how God brought comfort in the form of an angel. And we can break down the historical elements of the story until it is no longer real, but I prefer to think that there was a peace in that chaos of a village: a quiet assurance to the world that God is present and is interested.