May we not spend Christmas or observe Christmas but rather keep it. ~ Peter Marshall
Sometimes people seem to want to stop having Christmas as soon as midnight strikes on Christmas Day, but I think Christmas should last all the way to New Year’s and on as we continue to find joy in focusing our thoughts on a long ago starry night in Bethlehem when our Savior was born.
As Christians, we do remember the reason for the season but sometimes all the expectations of Christmas traditions can be overwhelming. People often ask if I’m ready for Christmas and I always say that Christmas comes, ready or not. And it did again this year. I didn’t get everything done. I totally failed at sending out all my Christmas cards. One of my gifts hasn’t made it to my mailbox yet. I didn’t make those crackerjacks like my mother always made or got other things done I thought I should do. We often make ourselves a way too long Christmas “to do” list when we should be thinking of the greatest gift ever given–Jesus.
So now, that my family celebrations are over, I’m going to take a moment to remember how a few of my characters celebrated Christmas. I like stepping back in time with my characters when Christmas expectations did seem simpler. Back in the 19th century, many families had a much different celebration. Perhaps families decorated a tree. Perhaps they didn’t. They may have gone to church and I have no difficulty imagining my characters reading the Christmas story from the Bible by candlelight. Families surely gathered to celebrate when they lived near one another. Stockings were hung by the fireplaces and filled with fruit and candy that were a special treat. Now, most of us can buy fruit and candy every week of the year if we choose instead of only buying it at Christmastime. Even in the 1930’s and 40’s Christmas was still a simpler time for many families.
I do celebrate Christmas with my characters in several of my books. In Summer of Joy, a story set in the 1960’s, my young heroine, Jocie, is surprised with a new bike, and if you know Jocie from my Heart of Hollyhill books, you know how happy that made her.
Head back a few more years with me to 1945 and my story Love Comes Home. With Christmas only days away, Kate welcomes Jay home from World War II. You can be sure I loved writing a romantic first Christmas for them since they married right before he went overseas in 1942. Here’s a bit of a Christmas scene.
“What is it you want to find under the tree on Christmas morning?” Jay asked. He kept the ring he’d bought in Virginia secret in his pocket, glad he’d gotten something for her then, because now he couldn’t bear to let Kate out of his sight long enough to shop.
“You,” Kate whispered. “Only you.”
“But you’ve already got me.”
“Sometimes Christmas comes early.”
Then in These Healing Hills, it’s still 1945 with my midwife nurse, Fran, looking forward to a peaceful, joyful Appalachian Mountain Christmas.
When she thought about how her mother back in the city would be frantically decorating and planning for Christmas, Fran was glad to be in a cabin sitting by a warm fire with her dog at her feet. She had mailed her mother a pair of mittens Jeralene’s mother knitted and sent Harold a jar of sorghum molasses. Christmas shopping done.
She might go to Wendover on Christmas Day if Becca wasn’t having her baby. Or maybe she’d make cookies and stay right here at the Center to hand out treats to anybody who came by. She could even wrap up some to take to Granny Em. That way she could stop in at the Locke house. Just thinking about that made her smile. She’d bought a little cloth sack of thumb-sized handkerchief dolls from one of the mountain women. Mrs. Jessup said they were church babies. Fran couldn’t wait to give those to Sadie.
Don’t you just love the picture of the church babies that I bought at a craft fair once? I was so glad to be able to work them into a story.
So I’ve been able to celebrate Christmas with several different families. True, they are made-up families, but in my mind they became real as I wrote their stories. That made it extra fun to write them a blessed and merry Christmas. I wish you all the same as you remember the shepherds hearing angels sing, a baby born in a stable, and Mary pondering the wonder of it all in her heart. (Luke 2:19)
May you also keep the wonder and joy of Christmas in your hearts as you welcome in a New Year in a few days.