As Christmases Continue to Pass
Remember how long it took Christmas to arrive as a kid. The days dragged on for infinity, as we waited for the big day to arrive. I remember my first Christmas away from my parents’ home. I was in the Coast Guard, stationed in Texas, having outsmarted the draft by trading four years of my life verses two. I might not have been in a rice paddy, but I did I feel alone! On Christmas Eve, Warren Crittenden, Denise Longstreet, and Kris Metzger came to my parents’ home to call me. We all laughed on the phone, and when they hung up, I cried. I wanted to be home so badly. After all, it was Christmas.
Soon, marriage came, and went, and came again. Then, along came kids who changed everything about Christmas. The smile on their faces, the excitement early Christmas morning—it was all so magical. But that paled in comparison to our grandchild’s first Christmas. All the time spent searching for just the right gifts for that first grandbaby, and all they wanted to do was play with the wrapping paper. It was then you truly understood that grandkids are best described as God’s reward for not killing your kids.
Then, there was the inevitable passing of the family torch when the family Christmas moved from your parents’ home to yours or that of a sibling’s home. In the beginning, it did not seem like Christmas. Something was missing. Later, you learned that nothing was wrong, but Christmas indeed had changed—forever.
As Christmases continued to pass, new traditions replaced the old ones. It began to feel more natural for Christmas to be celebrated in your home. No longer did it feel as if you were somehow cheating.
There was a time when my wife Joan and I began hosting the family for Christmas, and I wanted everything to be, well, perfect. Right, imperfect people trying to have a perfect family gathering. And just for kicks, let’s throw into the mix a few in-laws, out-laws, and a few of your kids’ exes coming and going, and you have anything but perfection.
I love to cook, and if the truth were told, I rather like to eat, but that is a different story for a different time. When the kids had grown and started raising families of their own, the “perfect Christmas” seemed harder and harder to find. For a few years, I envisioned our family sitting at one big table and raising our glasses in a Yuletide toast while a host of heavenly angels sang “Silent Night” just out of sight.
As a backdrop to all this, the kids were running to and from my grandparents-in-law (my grandkids’ other grandparents), and never were they all here when it was time to eat. Those of you who know me might have noticed that patience is not one of my God-given gifts. I once saw a T-shirt that exemplified my thoughts on patience. It showed two buzzards sitting on a branch, as one buzzard said to the other, “Patience, my butt, I’m going to kill something.”
After years of trying to get this Norman Rockwell Christmas dinner to happen with all the kids and grandkids properly seated when the timer on the oven dinged, I finally gave up. Now, that unrealistic Christmas dinner has been replaced with a come-and-go Christmas buffet. They come when they want, grab a biscuit, maybe some ham, stay a while, and leave when they like. Somehow, it all seems to work.
The tension for the most part has been replaced with a big dose of the Christmas spirit. That Christmas spirit is one reason I love the holiday season that I still choose to refer to as Christmas. As a Christian, I never want to forget the true reason for the season. But the Christmas spirit transcends a single faith. It is a feeling that envelops most of the world. While one-third of the world purports to be of the Christian faith, another one-third celebrates at least the secular aspect of Christmas, meaning that, of the almost 7 billion people on this big blue marble spinning through space, more than 4.5 billion stop, at least for a while, to celebrate Christmas.
That spirit is everywhere if you will just look you can see it in a big way like two armies who cease fire for a single day. And it’s seen in a thousand smaller ways as in the volunteers in the soup kitchens, in the food baskets given to a down-and-out family, in the smile of a dad as his son plucks a puppy from an animal shelter, in a driver who lets you out in traffic and smiles, in a kid with his pants halfway down his butt sporting a painful looking nose ring who pauses and holds the door open for an elderly person who might have graduated in 1970.
If only for one day, the world is a bit nicer. I think it is nicer because we are nicer. Nice begets nice and vice versa. When we show others we care, they cannot help but care right back.
As in the movie “Pay It Forward”, what would it be like if we extended Christmas? Maybe for just a day or two longer. Would the warm glow of the Christmas spirit pick up a little bit of momentum? Just as an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and an object at rest tends to stay at rest, I wonder if the same is true for a feeling such as the Christmas spirit. Could the momentum of one wonderful day carry us to two or three, or dare I say it—a lifetime?
One of my old high school classmates sent me an e-mail yesterday, stating, “Richard, The older I get, the more thankful I am for the simple but important gifts we receive... things we all used to take for granted. Family, friends, food, shelter, and health... how fortunate we all are.”
I could not agree more. The feeling of thankfulness by itself can create its own momentum in our life if we will but let it. It reminds me of a 2007 country song by Tim McGraw, “Live Like You Were Dying,” a song about a man who got the wrong test results and, thinking he was dying, learned how to live. Maybe that is what we should wish for this Christmas—to learn how to live gratefully.
So, as the Christmas of 2010 arrives with tomorrow’s daybreak, take a minute to be openly grateful for all you have been blessed with. And commit, if to no one but yourself, to seize the spirit known as Christmas and extend it, if just one more day, and if that works… well, who knows what is possible?
Merry Christmas from a Grateful
Richard Parker
