Christmas - the very thought is nostalgic, invoking childhood memories of tinsel-covered trees, bright bows and colorfully wrapped packages. It brings to mind lighted nativity scenes, kids caroling in the cold, and hot chocolate in front of a roaring fire. It's love and laughter fruitcake and pecan pie, childhood for a day.
Forget about life's pressing demands for a moment and embrace the Christmas spirit. Go ahead, give yourself to the magic of Christmas. Hear again the season's special sounds: carols coming from the big family radio, the running laughter of happy children, the murmur of conversation from aproned cooks in the kitchen.
Savor the smells: the aromatic scent of pine from the tree in the middle of the high-ceilinged living room (no artificial tress when you were a child); the tart-sweet odor of hot apple cider steaming on the stove; the rich aroma of pies cooling on the counter; the tantalizing smell of holiday meals in the making.
Replay the scenes on the screen of your mind. See again: overshoes in the corner of the kitchen, sitting in a puddle of melted snow; kids, cheeks flushed from the cold, toasting their toes over the wheezing floor furnace; a happy family playing table games while outside huge snowflakes blanket the world in winter white.
Experience again the full range of emotions these memories invoke. Let them play a nostalgic melody on the strings of your heart. Remember the warmth of a special friendship, the comfort of kindness, the closeness of family. Think about the Christ child in Bethlehem's manger and the nearness of God.
Blink back the tears, if need be, and swallow past the fist-size lump in your throat, but don't quench the memories. They are a part of your history, part of the web of experience which God has woven into the tapestry of your personhood.
Examine it. Celebrate it! Share it with your spouse, your children. No gift you can give will be more lasting or more deeply appreciated. Long after the toys have been discarded, and the clothes outgrown, your loved ones will remember and cherish your memories of Christmases past.
Where is God in all of this? Why, just where He has always been - in the thick of it! For God is at the heart of Christmas, manifesting Himself in life's ordinaries: a baby, born in a dung-infested sheep shed, to peasant parents. Shepherds stumbling all over themselves in their excitement to answer the angelic summons. An old man, a priest, seeing his dreams - and the dreams of all the ages - fulfilled in this obviously ordinary-looking child.
Even now God is revealing Himself as He always has - through the birth of a child, the joy of common men, or in the toothless musing of an old priest. Remember, for those who pause to listen the angels still sing, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."
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