Happy Christmas

It’s mid-morning on December 24th as I write this, and I’ve just sat down with a mug of reheated coffee. Handel’s Messiah is playing on our Alexa Dot and a pot of water is simmering on the stove steaming my mom’s Christmas cake.

I’ve had her recipe in the plastic yellow box I’ve kept special recipes in for the past half-century. Mom’s old wooden recipe box keeps mine company in the cupboard above the coffee station next to the pantry in our kitchen. I’m not certain I’ve ever made her Christmas pudding before, though I wrote it out on a card so I’d have it at some point in the long-ago times. (I texted my daughter so see if she could remember. She said maybe once when she was very young.)

Gerry just brought a bin in from the garage where I store our Christmas stockings and the minimal decor that I no longer choose to use. We’ve just hung them above the fireplace—one for Gerry, another pink one for Molly, and a 65-year-old one for me. Yes, it’s the same stocking Mom and Dad purchased somewhere here in Moose Jaw for my first Christmas.

It’s a pretty ordinary day here. The washer and dryer are humming—well, less humming and more making a racket. Gerry is just back from downtown with a box of butter and mincemeat tarts from the bakery. This evening, we’ll go downtown to the little Anglican Church we attend that was built in 1912 for the Christmas Eve service.

It occurred to me the other day that the seasons of us enjoying Christmas through the eyes of children are behind us unless and until, Lord willing, we live long enough to be blessed with great-grandchildren. That boggles the mind more than a little!

I wonder what you’re doing today. Are you, like us, enjoying a quiet day? Or, perhaps, calm before a Christmas morning storm? Whatever it is, and however you are marking Christmas Day, my wish for you is an abundance of the things we’ve been meditating upon over the past four weeks of Advent—hope, peace, joy, and love.

Peace that goes beyond circumstances because, Christmas or not, life is hard. And sometimes Christmas itself is hard. We’ve all been there. Hope, because without it, we fall into despair. Joy far surpassing the feelings commercialism stirs up in an attempt to get us to give in to despair and self-medicate by spending. And love, because you are so worthy to receive it and to embrace your own belovedness.

Happy Blessed Christmas, friends. May your day be one of peace.