I fed the car some extra gas, trying in my pig-headed certainty to outrun the storm, and turned the radio up to drown out the thunking, thudding and roaring of the storm.
The storm, though, was having none of that.
And so that’s how I came to be on the side of the Massachusetts Turnpike at dusk with a car that was slightly chilly on the inside and so frozen on the outside that the windshield wipers simply stopped working.
I sat there in the dark. In the silence. In the chill. I sat there thinking about the chili and church and my father announcing somewhere around 8 PM that it was time to haul the tree down from the attic, put it together and decorate it. One sister was in charge of the lights, another in charge of finding the colored nibs at the base of the branches to match the colored holes on the tree trunk. The twins would hang the ornaments on the lower branches. We’d toss handfuls of tinsel on the tree, and Mom and Dad would admonish, “one strand at a time.”
I’d be hanging ornaments on the upper branches, taking photos and singing loudly and somewhat off-key to the Sing Along with Mitch Christmas album. Only I was sitting on the side of the Massachusetts Turnpike slowly becoming a drift of snow.
I got out of my car and surveyed the wipers. I took off my mittens and mopped the wipers clean and blew some hot air on them. They didn’t move. Not a centimeter. I wrapped my mittens around the bases and waited a minute or two before trying again.
Nothing.
I was going to not only celebrate Christmas Eve in the breakdown lane, but quite possibly Christmas Day. In fact, I was—at that moment—pretty convinced that I’d be sitting here in this exact spot until the spring thaw. Which in Massachusetts happens sometime around May.
Why didn’t I listen to my mother?
Ging Ging, of course. Ging Ging, for the entire time I’d known her, had done exactly as she pleased, when she pleased. And it was clear that I possessed that act first, think later mentality.
So as my car got whiter on the outside and colder on the inside, I had a little chat with Ging Ging. We talked about why I was here on the Massachusetts Turnpike in the middle of a blizzard and how I was so pig-headed that I thought I could control Mother Nature and that no one really was to blame except for me.
But, I argued back, I really just wanted to be home with my family for Christmas. I wanted the chili and the artificial tree and the arguments about clumps of tinsel versus strands of tinsel.
I had ventured out in the snow, it turned out, not because I was proving to my mother that I was old enough to make up my own mind, but rather because I missed my parents, and my sisters and my brother and the chili and cornbread and the Yule Log burning on the television deep into the night.
The snow might keep me away, but my mother was right. Christmas was Christmas, whether I was there or whether I was celebrating with them in my heart and in my memory.
And with that realization the windshield wipers miraculously moved back and forth and back and forth as I held my breath watching my own personal Christmas miracle. They cleared the snow from the front of the car while I went out and cleared it from the other windows.
I thought about my family the whole way home. Now they’d be complaining that Mom made them go to church an hour early to get seats, and then make them give up their seats for elderly latecomers. Now they’d be stirring the bubbling chili in the pot. Now they’d be slathering the cornbread with butter. Now they’d be getting the tree from the attic.
Each mile I slid closer to home I thought of all the things about Christmas that I loved and that would always be a part of me. The windshield wipers kept rhythm with my memories as the wind pushed the car onward.
Two and a half hours later I walked in the door, shaking snow from my hair, and announcing my arrival.
“I’m sorry I came out in the snow,” I said, hugging my mother who stood in the kitchen pouring eggnog and arranging rum balls and spritz cookies on a Christmas tree tray.
“We saved you some chili,” she said.
~Tracy G. Rasmussen
Back to Basics
To give and then not feel that one has given is the very best of all ways of giving.
~Max Beerbohm
I’ve rarely been home for Christmas. In my family, the winter holiday traditionally has been an excuse to get away. Far away. So rather than hanging sparkling ornaments and baking sugar cookies, we would be riding Space Mountain at Disney World or sailing on a cruise to Mexico or viewing the once-sunken artifacts at the Titanic exhibit in Las Vegas. But for this particular year—despite a minority vote to return to Las Vegas—we decided to take it back to the basics and have Christmas at home.
It was a scary thought. What do you do when you celebrate Christmas at home? And how could it possibly compare to the exotic excursions of years gone by?
The questions hung in the air like those sparkling ornaments as my mother organized the “Christmas by the Bay” itinerary. But since we lived in the San Francisco Bay area, all wasn’t lost. We had hope. Surely, there had to be something to do, some activities or tours that we hadn’t yet tried that would make a local celebration worthwhile.
But it wasn’t as easy as we thought. We all had various schedules and lived cities apart so the struggle was to get everyone synchronized. Each part of the family had a designated day to pitch an idea for an activity. Since the point of staying home for the holiday was to get back to basics, I came up with the idea to go caroling. I had seen it done in the movies, but I had never seen real live carolers before. And besides, many of my family members were good singers so I thought it might be fun.
I knew we weren’t ready to hit the streets. You just didn’t do that type of thing where we lived anyway. So I started by brainstorming locations and my grandmother suggested a senior citizens home where her church choir once sang. I called the director and she liked the idea so I set the date, e-mailed a list of ten holiday songs with lyrics and told everyone to meet at the home by 3 PM and to wear black and red.
I arrived first with my mother and three brothers. I went inside to look around. It was a dimly lit home with seniors scattered in different areas. Some were in their rooms with the doors open and others shuffled through the hallways waiting for dinner. There wasn’t really a place for us to stand and sing to an audience so after speaking with the director, we just decided we would do a walk-by singing, moving through the hallways and lifting our voices at the same time.
“Everybody ready?” I asked the family once we had gathered at the far end of the hallway. Despite the rehearsal I had us do the night before at my grandmother’s house, I was still anxious.
They nodded, clutching papers with the printed song lyrics.
“All right,” I said, “Let’s do ‘Joy to the World.’”
They took their cue from me and we started to sing. Then we sang “Jingle Bells” and “Deck the Halls” and had a men-only rendition of “We Three Kings.” We even sang the “The Twelve Days of Christmas” in parts. With each song, our voices grew stronger, more assured and less self-conscious. But all around us, the residents acted as if we didn’t exist. Some stopped and watched, but most of them stayed in their rooms; some even closed their doors.
By the end, the family agreed it was fun, but I felt like I had failed. I didn’t feel like I lifted anyone’s spirits or spread the Christmas cheer. I didn’t feel like I made a difference. But what was it that I needed? Did I need someone coming up to me and saying “this has been the best gift ever?” Maybe I had been self-centered in my giving. Maybe I had watched too many holiday movies.
The following day we went to a homeless shelter in Oakland. It was my aunt’s idea for the itinerary. At the shelter, we would be serving meals in the multi-purpose room. The chef came out and gave us some instructions and pointed us to the plastic gloves as he began bringing out trays of steaming food. My family stood behind the buffet table and, as the residents lined up, we began filling their plates with turkey slices, mashed potatoes and macaroni and
cheese.
“Why don’t we sing?” my aunt suggested, once the last resident received his plate of food. It wasn’t part of the plan, but a good idea nonetheless. The family had so much fun before and we already knew the songs. Why not?
“Joy to the World?” I asked.
And so we did. We sang all the songs we had memorized, sounding more alive than ever. The residents were clapping and singing along and even asked for an encore after our closing number “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
“Wow. Are you guys a singing group?” one man asked.
As I stood there, the Christmas cliché about the spirit of giving suddenly made more sense. I realized that this season has nothing to do with what you get. It’s all about what’s in your heart to give without looking for praise or applause. I still have a lot to learn.
At first, I had no idea how to celebrate the holiday at home. But being there, celebrating with people who had no home, I had all the holiday I needed.
~Russell Nichols
A Humble Christmas
Too many people miss the silver lining because they’re expecting gold.
~Maurice Setter
“Our house is on fire!” I screamed into the phone. “Send a fire truck, quickly!” I was only fifteen at the time and made the mistake of calling 911 from inside my family’s smoky home.
It was December 21, 1986, and we were making last-minute preparations for Christmas when I heard my mom’s screams echoing from the basement. From the decibel and tone of her shriek, I could tell it was an emergency. Running into the hall, I saw smoke escaping from a vent. As I made that emergency call, the bedroom filled with smoke, and I realized my dreadful mistake of not calling from a neighbor’s house. Deep down, I thought the fire would be isolated to one place. I soon realized my family and our home were in grave danger.
The clarity that comes with crisis is amazing. We were in the middle of a season in which material gifts abound, but in a split second my mind was cutting through the smoke and focusing on, not the wrappings under the tree, but the exact presence of loved ones in our home. I called to my beloved fat tabby Muffin trying to coax her out from under the bed, her large fright-filled eyes peering out from under the bedspread. I picked her up, her large underbelly flopping over my arm, grabbed the arm of my seven-year-old sister, Kristi, and ran out the front door of the house with my mother on our heels. My father ran our Irish Setter, Rusty, out the basement door into the backyard. My older brother was working his weekend job and was away from home.
After what seemed like an eternity, a city fire truck screeched to a halt outside our home. The firefighters sprang into action and began battling the blaze, unfurling hoses and chopping a hole in the roof. Suddenly, I realized my feet were wet and cold. I looked down at my shoeless blue socks, soaking up water from the snow that covered the ground. Coatless, my sister and I went to our next door neighbor’s house to stay warm.
Later we learned that the fire, which started in the electrical wiring in the duct work, had spread and leapt up through the vents, causing damage throughout the whole house. Burnt to a charcoal black, the guest bathroom in the hall was on the verge of crumbling. Though it was in working order, my family had never heard the smoke detector’s beep. Its casing had melted and it was a misshapen disaster. One of the firefighters told us that if the fire had occurred at night, our family most likely would have perished. That night we checked into a Best Western, presuming it would be our holiday haven, thankful for the gift of one another. We knew that Christmas would be drastically different than Christmas celebrations of the past.
Since my childhood years my family had gathered around the living room’s brick hearth on December nights after the lighting of the Advent wreath. The tree’s ornaments would be carefully coordinated to match bows, wrapping paper, and other holiday trimmings. Real pine boughs graced the hearth and burning logs filled the air with the aroma of pine. There was hot chocolate and, if the weather permitted, snow cream. One year we savored A Christmas Carol by the fire in the weeks leading up to December 25th. We watched sappy made-for-TV movies, plotted last-minute gift ideas, and whispered delicious gift-giving secrets, forbidding one another to browse through closets. But in only a few minutes on that cold day in 1986, black smoke seeped into every warm crevice and gift-hiding place, invading our holiday den, changing our Christmas celebration and our lives.
As it turned out, the Best Western wasn’t our fate after all; a man at our church owned a rental home that was vacant. He graciously offered to let us stay there during the months it would take to repair our home. Two days before Christmas we settled in, but our trials continued. Since our live Christmas tree and the ornaments had been scorched in the fire, we had to settle for a Charlie Brown discount tree. Not accustomed to the rental house and a hole that gaped in the wall over the bathtub, we lamented when Muffin disappeared through it. Then someone stole a box of my childhood dolls and stuffed animals from the backseat of my mom’s car while she deposited canned goods inside our local needs center. The toy memories, including a handmade Raggedy Ann doll, were on their way to the cleaner to have the stench of smoke removed when they were heisted.
That Christmas could easily have been labeled the worst Christmas in our family’s history, but now, unbelievably, I can see it as one of the best Christmases. There were silver linings, the most obvious one being that no one was harmed in the fire. And we still managed to make memories, grateful when Muffin came out of the hole, hungry but in one piece. We finished our Christmas shopping, turned up the heat since we had no fireplace, and watched old movies. I cried at Gone With the Wind for the millionth time. We relished the kindness of friends and neighbors who brought us groceries, assistance and kind words. Some of them we hadn’t seen in years. I have even come to terms with my stolen childhood playthings, and I can honestly say there is no bitterness or remorse in my heart. My prayer is that they brightened the life of another child who otherwise would not have received anything for Christmas.
That Christmas we kept our tradition of going to the Christmas Eve service at our church, and I rejoiced at the birth of the Lord. I thought about how, even though He was born a king, He came to Earth in a most lowly and unexpected way. Now I understood from experience that everything can change in a few seconds. If my expectations were focused on material things, or even traditions, I might miss the blessings in what actually unfolds, however humbly Christmas comes. Even if we had spent our Christmas in that Best Western, we would have made memories just because we were together and had Christmas in our hearts. Now at Christmastime I warm myself by our hearth with my family and wait to see what unexpected events will delight, amuse, or strengthen me.
And I am humbled by the awe and meaning of the season, no matter how it comes to me.
~Janeen Lewis
Never Alone
If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.
~Mary Engelbreit
My husband Lawrence and I were celebrating our fourth Christmas together and we were working to establish our own holiday traditions. I had never had children and each of the past few years we had enjoyed the holiday season with his three precious kids, whom I now felt privileged to call my own. I expected this Christmas would be much the same and the thought of each of us being alone and apart on Christmas Day had never crossed my mind.
Lawrence and I decided to spend Christmas at our cabin in the mountains in New Mexico, which was our usual practice, and we hoped our kids would join us; however, the older two had different ideas. Our older daughter chose to stay in California, where she was attending college; our son opted to stay in Mississippi to work through his college break and save money for his spring semester abroad in Europe. The visitation period with our twelve-year-old wasn’t scheduled to start until noon on December 26th, but there were no flights available that day to pick her up in time, so we agreed that Lawrence would leave on Christmas to fly to Houston and bring
her to our cabin in the mountains. Our family would all be in different locations and apart on Christmas Day!
I pondered this reality and remembered a conversation a few weeks earlier during which my friend complained that she would be alone on Christmas Day. She elaborated in great detail about her long-standing tradition of having the entire family at her house to celebrate the birth of Christ, open presents, swap cookie recipes, exchange hugs and kisses, and feast happily on an oversized turkey and enough fixings to feed a small army. This year she agonized over being unable to orchestrate her historic family tradition. She also wept over the idea of being alone, and my heart ached for her.
Remembering that conversation made me wonder if I, too, would find myself terribly alone and missing my family, and that’s when I realized I could make a choice about my attitude toward Christmas. It was then I decided that I would not allow whatever happened (or didn’t happen) on Christmas Day to negatively impact my spiritual condition or my heart’s content. I would not entertain thoughts of disappointment or resentment, nor be captive to preconceived ideas about what the perfect Christmas should be. Come what may, I resolved that I would not be depressed about being alone!
Instead, I would rejoice in the gift of my husband and family and love them from afar. I would appreciate the blessed day for what it is and celebrate the birth of our King and God’s presence in my life. I would imagine the angels proclaiming from the Heavens, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men!” I would be content in my aloneness, trusting that this too would pass and that soon I would be reunited with my husband and our youngest child.
Christmas morning came, and my husband and I awoke in our cabin in the mountains, just as planned. We called our kids and other family members to tell them all how much we loved and missed them. I later took my husband to the airport and kissed him goodbye, after which I dined with friends, appreciative for the invitation. Finally, I went home to our empty cabin.