I have a new favorite symbol of Christmas in the form of Ebenezer Scrooge. In 2015, I had the privilege to visit all of my immediate blood relatives during the month of December for the first time in many years. As we sat down to eat Christmas Day at my sister's house, the phone rang...thrice. At first, I assumed, since the person calling has NEVER actually called me on the phone before that it must be a mistake. By the third ring, I answered. Listening to the caller on the other end, the words of Scrooge came into my mind: "I'm having dinner with my family" and so I didn't encourage conversation in order to get back to the present company.
You all know the songs and cliches about family and the Christmas holiday. You also know people I am sure who do not like their families, do not have families who care about them, or who have no family with whom to spend Christmas. One of my coworkers told me that she hosts her single friends with her family during the Holidays so that they have someone with whom to spend the time. While it's true that Christmases I made magical for other people stand out in my memory, I have many more memories of traveling long distances to see relatives, spending time in their homes, and being together with my parents. When I returned from Kansas/Texas for the New Year, I found the Christmas card from my maternal grandparents from 2014. It still had money in it. That means I'm the only grandchild who got a present from them this year, and as I read the card, memories of Christmases past flooded through me.
Dickens takes Scrooge through the iterations of Christmas for a reason. As we age, we forget the magic of CHristmas as children, the fun and merriment we enjoyed as young adults, and the missed opportunities as we focus on career in adulthood. Caught up in our own situation, we do not always realize the blessed and happy state we enjoy compared to the Cratchetts around us, some of whom view their comparable squalor as opulence, until the spirits take us to the street outside. Upset about our own disappointments, we don't realize that we can still participate in merriment and rejoicing with people who know and love us, and we can spend time with the Freds of our lives and have a marvelous time. The minister's cat is a mysterious cat! Each year seems to pass more quickly, and all too soon our lives are flown and we've done nothing to help the people around us God put into our paths to bless.
At the end of the day, as at the end of the movie, Christmas, like life, is about families. No matter who you are, and no matter how you feel about them, each of you have parents. Most of you have siblings, and some of you have your own brood. For Christmas this year, my dad gave us all digital copies of ALL the family movies. In 72 DVDs, I can literally watch my life pass before my eyes, but even in my own libations, I still practice alone and without anyone to notice some of the observances passed on by my family. My mom makes me conference cake. I still have nutcrackers like my father displays. I still have the nativity set my religious seminary instructor gifted me in 1997. I use a fiber optic tree. I sing before I open gifts. I get dressed before I go downstairs. I read Luke 2 the night before. I have a quasi Christmas tradition because of my family, and I don't have to be alone because of my family.
This year I was grateful for the opportunity to spend Christmas with my family. I had the option to stay home while my parents traveled, like they did last year, and care for the dogs. As much as they love my visits, they are not the same as my siblings. As much as we have our own family "moments", we do have fun, and my nieces both enjoyed my visits (I don't really know why). Mostly, I wanted to watch them open the gifts I gave them. That's Christmas for me. it was a lean year, so I wasn't as generous, but I did want them to have good things. That's what real families do- they care about and for each other. Maybe one day I'll have a family of my own, and my parents will come over to visit us or we'll go over to open gifts there like we did when I visited my grandparents. It's strange not going to visit them anymore, but at least I still have some family, a good family, and that is one of God's greatest gifts to me.
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