It’s around this time of year when I start to take stock of how things are going with my life. It’s a time to be thankful and loving. Perhaps it is odd, but this Christmas, I think back to my lunches a couple of years ago with Michael.
It’s rather amazing. Years after meeting him, I think of him again this Christmas. At first, I would wish for him to find that for which he is holding on, but after thinking about it, it seems he had found it. In fact maybe his mentality is closer to the Christmas spirit:
“…hold on because God is good and God says the word is good, and the word says the world is good so everything is going to get better because…”
Maybe the true Christmas spirit is one of recognizing all the good in our lives and holding it close. When I asked my son last night what he thought Christmas was all about, he said, “Christmas is about loving our family.” Amen.
I sometimes find it funny how many people say seeing all the Christmas lights out gives them more Christmas enthusiasm or spirit. As I walk around my neighborhood, almost half of them are decorated for Christmas including one house whose light display is one people make special trips just to drive by it and gawk. It’s impressive, and one might think they are trying to get on one of those extreme Christmas light shows. Despite its and other houses’ bright attention grabbing light shows, the house I think best sums up Christmas spirit to me is the house down the street with the single electric candle in each window.
Their candles are lit year round. The funny part to me is the parents didn’t know what it signifies, though the daughter who owns the house did and does. The single white candle in every window used to mean there is a warm open bed here, and nobody need freeze outside. It was a welcome on those cold frozen nights. The meaning of the signal is lost on most everyone these days, but the simplicity and worthiness of the message is my favorite Christmas symbol.
My kids love our Christmas lights and want more, so I don’t see a change in the near future for us. I do sometimes wish we could just put the light in every window. It would be even better if we could agree to honor the message. That said and looking around my house, maybe our house is on the right track towards honoring the message.
Merry Christmas!
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Hi!
If you look at a map of Massachusetts, just south of New Hampshire along the north coast, you’ll find the port city of Newburyport, at the mouth of the Merrimack River. Georgetown is a small town about ten miles due south, and east of the city of Haverhill. These are not large cities. Newburyport has a lot of small restaurants and the boardwalk along the river, which the kids would love, as fishing boats tie up there. Coast guard museum (small, original?) and the oldest still operating court house in the country (where, yes, I had jury duty one cold January when it was under re-construction … no heat!)
I think we are a good 2 hours north of Cape Cod.
Scrod, here, means catch of the day. Might be Cod, might be something else from the sea. It’s all good. Or is that pollack I’m thinking of? Have to get to Wiki to find out.
We are also about two hours south of the Old Orchard Beach area of Maine, where I think soft shell lobster might be found.
Merry Christmas to all of you!
Terry
I love Christmas lights, too. And I love Christmas, and celebrate it all year long. The creche is always set up,and the angels and nutcrackers stay on the mantel all year. My son’s Christmas village, which we’ve built one building per year; now at 24, it dominates the dining room, and visitors still enjoy seeing its little ice skating pond with the figures twirling over the dusty ice in the heat of summer months.
There is no pretense in our toy shop: three lit trees all year, to show our wooden ornaments, and doll beds, and trucks and puzzles and cradles and tea tables … you can visit and see much of what my husband and I make and sell in the shop http://woodentoysandgifts.webs.com
And when we’re hot in the summer, it’s nice to sit in a cool barn with Christmas Carols playing all day long.
I’m sharing some of that Christmas spirit with the world this week, but it is truly here for the whole year. Merry Christmas!
If ever you’re in Massachusetts, or New Hampshire, or Maine, come visit us!