Snap By Snap

I've had a little trouble getting into the Christmas spirit this year. Keep in mind that I love Christmas - I'm the type that has six boxes of Christmas decorations in the garage and thoroughly enjoys decorating the house, having family over, giving presents, watching Christmas movies . . . in short, I'm generally a Christmas junkie. But this year my brain is preoccupied with work and my bones are feeling a little tired.

So now we have the tree up, the house has slowly been decorated, and tonight we had a Christmas gathering for our small group (or maybe it's a medium group with 10 adults and 7 kidlets?). Earlier in the day I had to work and then ran a few errands on the way home. The traffic around shopping areas was truly horrendous, complete with angry drivers looking for parking spots and honking at older drivers when they hesitated a moment too long on where to turn. Stores are packed with worthless junk, waiting for us to plunk our plastic down in order to have one more bauble under that tree. If I see or hear "Happy Holidays" one more time . . .  well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that Christmas isn't really about the birth of the Savior anymore, it's a crummy commercial, to quote Ralphie. It's enough to make this Christmas junkie cynical. But here's the problem, I'm an idealist. I don't want to be a cynic.

Fortunately, the Christmas Spirit saved Christmas for me once again.

As I worked at the library today, a patron talked with me about her compassion for a homeless couple who were obviously living in their car, parked at the library this morning. She was hatching a plan for how to anonymously give them a cash Christmas gift. She'd been unemployed for two years at one point, and she knew how easy it was to lose it all.

As I walked into Kroger, I overhead a couple talking to each other, strategizing what they could do for someone who really needed help this Christmas. "Surely we could do something for them . . ."

And then as I checked out at Hobby Lobby, the young man working the register hummed a tune as he worked. The tune was "Joy to the World."  Such a simple thing, humming a tune. But of all the tunes, it was the one that so accurately describes the reason we celebrate. God's Son, sent to a sorrowing and suffering world. JOY to the world.


So maybe Christmas is all about commercialism for many people, but I'm going to focus on the people like the ones above who, whether they know it or not, embody the true Christmas Spirit. We give because He gave. We celebrate, because we've been given the best gift ever given.  If that's not worth twinkly lights and a festive mood, I don't know what is!

And just for fun, here are some ornaments with stories to go with them
First Christmas, nearly 28 years ago. I love this ornament. Every year it's the first one I look to find.
Also a first year ornament, this Rudolf (he's lost his red nose) was one of about a dozen handmade ornaments received as wedding presents from a friend who lived down the street from me growing up. For years we'd played up and down the street on bikes and in wagons until the street lights came on, and racked up endless trips to each other's front door: Can Paula play? Can Cheryl play? Through high school we drifted apart, but remained on friendly terms. Then out of the blue came this wonderful, thoughtful wedding present. About four of the original twelve ornaments have survived, and are on the tree every year.

When we first moved to Indianapolis, visiting the Children's Museum was a great treat. Every Christmas they have "Jolly Days" and when Amy was four, the three of us sat at a little table with little chairs and each made a bear ornament. We have all three bears on the tree every year. Amy's bear is my favorite, not only because of the cute scrawl on the back, but also because she made the bear's face like a doggy. Everything was a dog when Amy was little. Every preschool craft, every story character, everything.
When Amy was young, her Aunt Debbie sent her a doggy ornament every year. Amy will have a nice collection to start her tree when she gets her first place. Unfortunately the Dalmatians ornament above is a little worse for the wear. One year the mommy dalmation lost one ear. Then the other. Then one year we found a stray puppy head rolling around the bottom of the ornament box. For some reason, this is hilarious to Amy and I. It looks to us like those poor puppies just flew down that sledding hill so fast, that it blew Mom's ears right off! We have a sick sense of humor, we realize.
Our latest injured ornament used to be a star. Hannah, a little friend of ours down the street made it for us two years ago out of salt dough. Friday night I heard a CRUNCH from the front room. There was Goldie, crunching away on the sad remains of the star. She couldn't understand why I was upset, since I was the one who was silly enough to hang a cookie on the tree! We looked and found this one remaining point of the star still hanging on the tree. She ate it right off the branch! Years from now we'll smile when we look at this poor twinkle of a star, and remember our white faced doggy who still had a little puppy in her.