Whenever possible, we wait to put up our tree on the morning of Christmas Eve. This year, December 24th falls on the fourth Sunday of Advent, entailing morning services and two Christmas Eve masses for those singing in the choir. Clearly, that won’t be the best day to add in decorating a Christmas tree, so we are dedicating Saturday to the task.
Task is not the exact word, although labor is involved. Let’s just say that my ideal of being the matriarch of a Victorian family where the housekeeper and butler dress the tree, then usher us into the parlor at twilight to find a roaring fire and real candles sparkling on its perfectly spaced branches . . . well, that is not how our tree-decorating day will go. In fact, if you want to witness the exact opposite of that scenario, come by Saturday and pull up a chair.
We have a full house this Christmas, to my surprise and delight. This means the house will ring with joy and chaotic squabbling from closely knit grandkids aged 10, 9, and 8. Do you know how many forty-second long episodes of stupid jealousy followed by ten minutes of adorable reconciliation can take place any given day with that combination? There will be constant cooking, dishwashing, and intermittent attacks with the vacuum cleaner, if I can push enough stuff out of the way. We won’t have a White Christmas, but we will have vacuum bags filled with dust, dried grass, lego pieces, tops to mini-gel pens, and mangled hair bobs.
Our son Dennis is scheduled to take on a full list of outdoor jobs. He is an ardent worker, so things will happen lickety-split—sometimes too lickety (“Yikes, Dennis, I didn’t mean for you to dig up that bush!” . . . followed by “It’s just a bush, mom, you can get another one.”).
We will see mere flashes of our daughter passing through the scene, since she works for the US Post Office, which clearly needs to be renamed “Your Local 24-Hour-a-Day US Amazon Distributor.” That cute little, or not-so-cute big, post office down the road from you is not the post office of your childhood. You realize this if you’ve been waiting to receive a letter recently. Instead, today’s post office is a chaotic place where trucks from Amazon arrive at all hours, and whoever is processing those packages had better be there. Helen doesn’t have a schedule: she has a call button. Lately I have stopped even asking her hours: “Do you know what a drop of 12 pallets of Amazon at 4 a.m. looks like, Mom?” Answer: “No, and I don’t want to know.”
Still, when Helen is stationed at the window, magic happens. She is extraordinarily gifted in customer service and workplace dedication, regardless of where she has been employed. Buttons and ribbons ever dangle from her uniforms to attest to statements people have sent by phone or email to compliment the creative way she handled their problems, or simply cheered up their days. I doubt they give out ribbons for dismantling mountains of boxes, but if they did, she’d sport those too.
As for me, I still have no idea what I’m cooking for a single meal. Be merciful towards me! I just got back Tuesday night from a Christmas Market tour on the Rhine River. My mind still believes a team of charming waiters awaits to lead me three times a day to a gorgeously set table, pull my chair, and gently place a menu in my hand. Looking across my kitchen, the closest thing I can find to that is the clean glassware in the upper rack of my dishwasher.
Of course, nothing is wrapped. In fact, due to a lamentable condition that everyone in my family accepts by now, I always forget where some of the gifts have been hidden. My mother did this same thing, hiding gifts so cleverly that it usually took until February before she found them all. Such behavior may not be embedded genetically, but it does get passed on. At least, unlike her, I can print images of the missing items and present them, fully wrapped, mitigating at least some of the groans.
May I add my voice to those wishing you and yours a smooth sail this Christmas? If you, as we, will be surrounded by squealing voices and family chaos, let us pause to remember how lucky we are to have a family, challenges and all. If you are struggling this season, suffering separation from others, worrying about loved ones in the line of fire, or tearfully recalling those who have gone before, may I send a quiet prayer for you to feel the cloak of comfort warming your shoulders, be it only for a moment.
How desperately the light of Christmas is needed this year! Yes, it is needed every year, but this Christmas marks a particularly dark time. The light that lies inside each of us needs to glow as brightly as we can kindle it. Let there be chances for us to offer the flame of that candle, brightening the path for those longing for comfort.
