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Our Christmas’ past must slip away with the years, years never given up to demons that ravage our ways, no, but carefully tucked into folds of loving memories, into albums so we can say we held the belief, each year we have stood firm. Full of weddings, new children, graduations, funerals too, are things that make a family.
We trimmed the tree with conviction, sang the carols with fervor. Collected for the yuletide charities, passed out blankets and food, decorated our homes and churches, celebrated another birthday. Another day of coming for the one that only we await.
Others waited patiently at our seemingly groundless cheer, looking askance in curiosity but not much more. They took those days off too, thank you very much. A holiday with pay is welcome by anyone, anytime.
Our job is plainly to give it away, it won’t work anymore unless the young people have it, and know how to put it together once more.
There are other songs played of course. Songs about reindeer, elves, drummer boys, snowmen and all sorts of creatures real and imagined. There are stories made up for the Christmas season that bring joy and cheer to others that have nothing to do with Christmas. The real story is told in the epiphany of the Magi when they come to understand who Jesus is. They take another path home not going near King Herod and his treachery.
And somehow, we really don’t know how, but it happens that we come to know, like the Magi, the reality of Christ, even as a child, and what he will come to mean to all of us.
How it happens we know not, but that it does: maybe at church, reflecting in a pew, or at home gazing at the reborn magic of the Christmas tree, or perhaps while driving in the seasonal traffic, it strikes us again, for one more year, the magic of Christmas still comes, it still exists, and will manifest itself to us, yes at least one more time... Christmastime this year.
