Recently my publisher asked me to write a
guest post for their blog. It’s up today, and it’s called “A
Christmas Wish.” I’m reposting here for those interested.
This was a tough blog post to write. I’ve
known for a while that the deadline was coming up, but honestly, had the worst
time writing it. After the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I have felt
like nothing I say holds significance. How, I asked myself, can I write about
Christmas, when my heart feels like a leaden balloon in my chest? The pain that
those parents and loved ones are suffering–and will continue to suffer–is
unimaginable. I’ve thought of not much else these past days but fervent hope for
their peace and ease.
My friend, the writer Kimberly
Brock, and I talked about this. She, too, was asked to do a guest
post earlier this week. Both of us had an admittably hard time writing. Hers is
here;
I think she does a great job addressing the mystery that surrounds this time of
year.
But if there’s a time of year meant for hope,
a time meant for magic and for the promise of Light, it’s this season.
So here’s my post. It’s nothing special, just
childhood memories and a wish. I hope you enjoy it.
Christmas magic.
It’s something—a feeling, a spirit, a
hope—that I’ve searched for, and inevitably found, every December since I was a
child.
When I was very young, my parents made the
magic. They filled our house with Christmas cheer: Johnny Mathis, John Denver
and Bing Crosby on the record player and then the stereo; a house festooned
with garland, candles and poinsettias; the everyday china exchanged for plates
and mugs and bowls of Cuthbertson Christmas china; the lighting of the Advent
calendar; the mistletoe hanging from the light fixture in the foyer; and the
enormous Virginia pine Christmas tree. Today, that tree is a Fraser Fir, but
it’s still brilliantly lit with bubble lights and adorned with mine and my
sister’s hand-made ornaments, along with a precious few that have been in my
father’s family since the turn of the century. It stands next to an enormous
real-wood fireplace, red, crocheted stockings hung at the fat wooden mantel,
just waiting for Santa Claus. To this day, my sister’s and my stockings are
stretched inches longer than any of the others from years of being stuffed to
the brim with goodies.
On Christmas Eve we’d head to church for the
United Methodist celebration of the Moravian Love Feast. We’d sing Christmas
carols, convene with friends, and hold our candles aloft as the entire
sanctuary sang “Silent Night.” I loved standing on the pew bench with my
family, holding my candle high and watching the glow on the faces around me.
After, we’d head home for Christmas Eve supper with my aunt’s family and our
best family friends: a tradition we still keep to this day. That very night,
Santa would call the house, and all the kids would line up to hear just where
his sleigh was at that very moment (usually over the Atlantic Ocean, Rudolph
lighting the way through the fog).
Sheer magic.
Now, as an adult with a writing and teaching
career, a family (including a husband, a dog, a three year-old daughter and a
baby on the way), it takes a concerted effort to create that Christmas magic. I
have to look for it—to make it happen, because I want my daughter to grow up as
I was so lucky to: feeling that every day of December holds promise and magic.
I want her to be able—as I did as a child, a
teenager, and still do—to stand outside in the dark of a cold Christmas Eve,
and to look up at that mysterious sky with wonder and hope. I want her to feel
in her bones a peace like no other. That is my most fervent Christmas wish,
this year of all years. I wish it for all of us—for the community of Newtown,
Connecticut, for all the world, for my family and for yours.
Tonight and every night, may we sleep in heavenly peace.
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