Our
family has just celebrated another Christmas together— on January 10th this year—a tradition we began years ago when
our Christmas dinner was intercepted by hockey tournaments and figure skating
practice. It was challenging to know when to serve the dinner, and that was
before our family had grown to the size it is today.
Change is not often easy. I cannot remember
how the discussion went, but we all agreed to move our feast into January—when
other family festivities had come and gone, New Year’s Eve was over and the
children were settled back into school.
Each year the “night before Christmas”
anticipation seemed a distant past, and by then we’d perhaps settled into the
New Year, our resolutions not yet broken or tampered with too much. Then we’d
have our Christmas feast and celebrate our father’s early January birthday.
Over
the years, the hosting has shifted from Mom and Dad at our family home, with
everyone bringing food, to (we) daughters hosting in our homes. We must be on
the third round by now.
As my husband and I arrived at Joan and
Ron’s home, we met my brother and nephew leaving, taking Christmas dinner to my
parents who were not able to attend— their first ever miss for this occasion. I
added a few things to their load before entering my sister and brother-in-law’s
home. This year was already different
for the date was shifted a week later so that our brother who was coming home
from the West could be with us for our Christmas dinner.
Festively decorated tables awaited
everyone as we filled our plates and sat in the kitchen, living room and family
room. The food was plentiful and no one would go away hungry, except by choice.
The feast was varied and delicious—no turkey to be tasted this time around.
Even
if the house was quite full, at about 28 people from adults to small children
and one baby, we missed those families and individuals who could not be with us,
due to work schedules, and colds and flus.
We’d made yet another change from our
gift-giving game to only having a children’s gift exchange, and the option of a
games tournament that didn’t come to pass, although some indeed played a game
popular in our family. My youngest sister, Kim, brought along the video she had
created for Mom and Dad’s 65th wedding anniversary celebration last
June—an event postponed by our parents’ health issues.
The video, consisting of family photos
and accompanied by some of Mom and Dad’s favourite music, made for a most
time-consuming but worthwhile project featuring all members of the family,
including beloved pets. Some of us watched it twice, enjoying every moment. We
pulled ourselves out of our chairs to say goodbye and face the outdoor coldness
and be on our way. The hours went far too fast.
By commercial standards, it seems that
Christmas is over when the wrapping is torn off gifts on Christmas Day, and
throughout the Christmas week. We are not the first ones stretching the season—we’d
extended it just past Epiphany, the time of the church year that marks the wise
men’s appearance in Bethlehem to see the new king more than two thousand years
ago.
The scene had shifted there too—from the
manger to another house in the city, but it was still part of the story of
Jesus’ birth. Changes that the world would watch and wonder at; changes that
would affect many lives, and still does as people experience the gift of grace
anew or for the first time because of the birth of a baby that God sent to the
people of the time with a plan to redeem his people from their sin. And still
does.
Carolyn Wilker, editor, storyteller, writing instructor, and author of Once Upon a Sandbox, a 2012 finalist in Canadian Christian writing awards.
http://www.carolynwilker.ca/
