CHRISTMAS MEMORIES

“I thank my God every time I remember you.” Philippians 1:3

My Dear Sister Judy,

Looking back, it was only a handful of seasons;

in the scope of our lives, it was only a few,

but it seemed like scores of Christmases then,

whose comings and goings would never end,

when Mother would bring the Christmas tree in

in colors no tree ever grew.

Like cotton candy, more than a tree,

flocked in blue, even pink-tinted snow,

we’d deck it in fashionable “ice”covered lights,

and when our picture window would fog up just right,

303 Tenaha would extinguish the night,

and our proud eyes and hearts would glow.

I remember my Betsy-Wetsy doll;

I remember your Tiny Tears.

There were red and yellow cowboy boots,

chemistry sets, and stocking loot,

Roman candles, almonds, and Juicy Fruit,

dependable, year after year.

And we could always depend on Mother to run

from the pictures Daddy would click.

Cousins came over, or we went there,

anxious to see how each other fared,

still in pajamas, but nobody cared—

and there were log-sized peppermint sticks!

You played your piano or accordion,

and Daddy made all of us sing.

For this one day, at least, a ceasefire was called;

no bombs could be dropped, no axes could fall.

It was all for one, and one for all—

a miracle only Christmas could bring.

It was magic for sure, and we couldn’t wait

for the season to work its charm.

Duke Ellen and Janis would appear with their things;

you’d play your records and compare diamond rings

while we’d cuss and bust my new trampoline.

Life was happy and safe and warm.

The family weather was unstable;

in a flash it could turn ice-cold.

And its fabric was fickle— burlap or cashmere—

it was anyone’s guess all the rest of the year.

But when we pulled out the tinsel, we packed up the tears,

and fashioned a tapestry of gold.

Some logs in that hearth we’ve resigned to the ages;

some better as ashes than embers.

But the way our parents made Christmas- oh man!

Weren’t they something? Wasn’t it grand?

Just Mother and Daddy, Judy, and Jan,

and those precious Parker Decembers.

(To my little big sister, who alone can share these rare memories)

Remember these days?

Quick—before you get up and are swept into the season’s bustle today—grab a pen and write some shared memories of a Christmas Past to someone you love!

GIFT BY STARLIGHT

“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him…Then they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh…” Matthew 2:1-2, 11

If I were a wise man when you were a baby, I want you to know, dearest Lord of my soul,

I would have found a way to the town ‘neath that star of silver to your manger of gold.

As the others packed up their camels with spices and gold all befitting Immanuel, the King,

My mind would be spinning the words just beginning to capture the art I would fashion to bring.

Oh, lyrics melodious, celestial I’d choose each night ‘neath the Star by a flickering flame—

Unsurpassed flowing of imagery glowing for the longed-after infant bearing Heaven’s own Name.

Not even a minute would it take me to choose the gift I would wrap up to give you back then,

For even now I suppose every phrase I compose and entrust with trembling into substitute hands

Is a wish of a foolish and misguided plan of a blind and aimless schemer.

For how could they know how deep these words go? Like a dream only real to the dreamer.

Tonight as my soul spun its best similes and my phrases danced glorious rhythms to you,

I finally discovered you alone are the lover with the heart my lyrics relentlessly pursue.

I am no wise man, and You are no baby, and I can’t hold you yet, though I follow your Star.

Every day brings me nearer to that moment so dear when at last I extol you for all that you are.

So since Heaven is too holy for these trappings of earth, and we can’t take these mortal things on it,

I’ll give up fantasizing and begin memorizing my heart laden down with love sonnets.

However you do it best, worship Him this Christmas! Do it with singing, do it with poetry, do it with cooking, do it with rolling on the floor with your kids and grandkids. Most of all, do it with heart. Throw all you have and are behind what you do. Worship the Gift that is Jesus!

EVERGREEN THROUGHOUT THE YEAR

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest…You have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor…For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.” Isaiah 9:2-6

Tonight the year’s red carpet rolls beneath the evergreen,

And little eyes are savoring what older ones have seen

Of the star above the stable tied on limbs with golden strings;

Of dancing flashes of color in the snow-white angels’ wings.

The magic inextinguishable in spite of age or care

Or troubles that without this season permeate the air

Still fill the chamber so reserved for frolic and frost and bells

And flaunts the dream before us, ‘til we’re caught within its spell,

Finding bright, new selves within, beribboned by the season,

With tinsel of good cheer and comfort, transcending any reason;

Forgetting for the moment confining earthly chains,

But kept aloft and soaring on the carolers’ refrains.

Despair is dead, and the awful haunts are for awhile unseen-

Encircled yet another year by wreaths of evergreen.

Christians are the ones whose job it is to show a dark, lost world that Christmas is not just for one season. We are to be the evergreen message that wafts its fragrance in mid-May. We are the tinsel that shines in July and September, the candles that glow with hope’s lovely warmth in February and the Fourth of July just as certainly as in December.

If it’s never occurred to you that it’s your job, take hold of the notion and claim it as truth. If you’ve never been able to do it before, believe that next year you can. A world is dying from our lack of awareness. Let us pay attention and stay evergreen throughout the year with the message of the Child that was born to shatter our yokes.

WINTER FIRE

The shadows of winter swallow the sun that adorned the bright head of June.

December’s demons dance their darkness and cape the harvest moon.

But you are with me even so; my hands in yours stay warm.

Alive in my soul burns the passionate hope of the Christmas Child who calmed the storm.

A sheet of ice looms ghostly ahead; the road is black with its danger,

Trying to hide its treacherous scheme to cloak our memory of the manger.

The winds keep howling their winter moan, then gust into a cry,

Hoping with their plaintive dirge to drown the lullaby.

But you are with me even so; my hands in yours stay warm.

Aglow in my heart burns the hot, constant spark of the Christmas Child who defies my storm.

Ice is forming on my windows; deadly crystals entice.

Sometimes the chill lures my tired will to be glazed by the hard, cold ice.

Then I remember Bethlehem’s manger and the infant Messiah’s first cries,

And the thaw that came over the world that night forms a warm-flowing joy in my eyes.

For, oh, you are with us even so! Immanuel strong and warm.

Born to be claimed, reborn to be named our undying peace through the storm.

Once long ago on some obscure calendar date Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, but He is reborn every day somewhere in hearts that were dark and afraid. Could He be waiting to return for us because some cold hearts we encounter each day are awaiting the spark of His Life that we carry but do not offer? Let’s hasten His return by telling them!

TIDINGS OF COMFORT AND JOY

It seemed like the closer it got to Christmas, the more Johnny Paul kept showing up at our door. He’d want me to come out and play football up the street with him and Bubba and Jeremiah or was wondering if I could come down to his house and work on drawing maps for geography, and once he wanted to know if we had some rope that he and his buddies could use to rig up a trolley from the top of a pine tree across the street in the woods. Everything he came peddling sounded like something worth buying, so I’d grab my carcoat and take off with him nearly every time.

It occurred to me that I’d get a glad feeling that he wanted me to go, and that caught me by surprise, since I had argued so with Mother about him not being my boyfriend and all that day she was working on the clowns. It also occurred to me that he had quit me last year right after Christmas for no good reason except what Mother interpreted as the loss of some sort of “mystery.”

This “mystery” was in a realm I clearly knew nothing about. It all seemed pretty ignorant to me. The whole point in every Nancy Drew book I had ever read and every Alfred Hitchcock movie I had ever seen was to get the mystery solved, not to hope it would go on and on making everybody wonder. But according to Mother, Johnny Paul liked mysteries better when he couldn’t solve them. So now I was in a hard spot: I was liking being pursued by a boy who would only keep liking me as long as he couldn’t catch up with me. Mother said the trick was to play “hard to get.” When you’re used to not having to think about what other people are thinking about you from one minute to the next, like when we were playing football or climbing trees and building trolleys, it’s hard to remember to think about pretending to like somebody less than you really do. It didn’t seem natural, and I thought I would probably make the mistake again of turning loose of any mystery I might have had because to tell you the truth, I didn’t really have any secrets I was keeping from Johnny Paul or anybody else. The biggest mystery to me about this whole thing was what on earth Johnny Paul thought was such a mystery about me anyway. It wasn’t like I was in the CIA or something. Of course I couldn’t tell him that or he wouldn’t have even been interested in popping firecrackers with me at Christmas anymore. This whole thing just gave me the thumps.

But he must have thought I had gotten ahold of some new secrets since last January because sure enough, just like last year, when Christmas Eve came around, there he was on my front porch again looking like Steve McQueen with his blue eyes and black eyelashes and a sack of Black Cats. When the sack was nearly empty, we had a contest to see who could hold onto a firecracker the longest before throwing it. One went off in my hand, so I guess I won. Johnny Paul led me crying into the house where Mother slathered butter all over it.

I knew Johnny Paul had a present for me in the bottom of the Black Cat sack because I had seen it, so even though my hand still throbbed and I would have liked to just go get under the covers, rock my hand, and bawl, I went on back outside and sat on the porch in the dark with Johnny Paul. There, with Johnny Paul’s comforting arm around me keeping me warm and the Christmas tree lights blinking joy through the window behind me, I lost the will to play the game my mother advised me to keep playing, and let myself be caught and kissed. I hoped that kiss wouldn’t cause all the mystery to leak out because I had bought Johnny Paul a silver identification bracelet for Christmas with my name on the back which I figured would become obsolete way too fast for the $7.95 Mother paid for it if things went south like they did last Christmas.

Lately at night after I’d finished my ritual of reading several pages in the dictionary, I would think about Mother’s mystery theory and work on coming up with ways to latch onto some kind of emergency mystery just in case Johnny Paul started acting like he had about figured me out again. I thought one good idea would be to gaze at him with serious eyes and solemnly pronounce “Yo escribo con lapiz.”

Daddy and I had begun a project of learning Spanish, and “I write with a pencil” was as far as either of us had gotten. I thought if worse came to worse this would suffice as a good mystery for him to chew on for a few days and might buy me a little time. But tonight there was no need; it was the magical season of Christmas, and I felt Johnny Paul securely resting in the palm of my hand.

I could tell by the size of the box in the Black Cat sack that he hadn’t bought me another comb and brush set this year, and I was right: in the tiny black velvet box wrapped in shiny green foil paper was a silver necklace with a disk engraved with my name on one side and his on the other. It was just the thing I needed to convince me once and for all that I could quit worrying about my mother’s ridiculous notions about mysteries.

Among other things under our tree the next morning, like sweaters and gloves and records and pajamas, was one of the things I had wanted most for two whole years: a b-b gun complete with a whole arsenal of b-b’s. And out in the back yard was the other: a blue 24” ten-speed English racer bicycle. On that happy Christmas morning with Johnny Paul’s disk hanging around my neck and my brand new bike and b-b gun waiting for me to take for a spin, Travis Wayne Harvey could have sat down at our dinner table and called me “Sunshine”— or for that matter, “Possum Breath”—for three hours straight without ever stopping to take a breath, and I would have just smiled and offered him more turnip greens. I thought there might be something to what Mr. Pete kept talking about; it looked like Jesus had finally found His way to Herald Street.