The holiday season may be behind us, but I can’t afford to forget what I learned as 2022 drew to a close.
I grew up celebrating Christmas like most Lutherans I knew in the 1960s and ‘70s. My dad would drive our family of six to the early Christmas Eve service so that we’d be home by 8 pm to conduct our own “program.” This began with a Bible reading of the Christmas story, enhanced by homemade costumes we wore every year, until we stopped liking the dress-up routine. I was always Mary, my older brother appeared as Joseph, my younger sister got to be the angel, (she had the best costume), and our youngest brother was, well . . . probably a shepherd.
During this 20-minute ritual, Mom would accompany us at the piano for two or three Christmas hymns. We’d bow our heads through the final prayer, anticipating the moment we would open presents–one package and one person at a time—as the rest of the family watched. Official program activities ended with a race to the dining room table, where a beautiful array of homemade cookies and Chex mix awaited our grubby, sometimes ribbon-stained hands. It was the one night during the year when we could play with our toys until we fell asleep.
The family program hadn’t begun with my parents. So ingrained was our annual Christmas Eve reenactment that, in my forties, I was still participating with a wider circle of Minneapolis relatives in a rendering of the Christmas story. Each of us had a role, complete with props handed out by my grandmother, who was by then in her late eighties. When she couldn’t find a shawl that reminded her of Mary, the person chosen to play Jesus’ mother would have to wear whatever Grandma had found at the thrift store–one year it was a hot pink business jacket.
In my hometown of St. Louis, the Christmas Eve program was replaced at some point by a celebration my brother and his wife hosted for their extended families–a much-anticipated event that continues to this day.
This was a big change for my parents, which may explain the difficulty I had detaching from our Christmas Eve legacy, despite my internal conflict over whether it still fit the spiritual direction our families were taking. When my older brother converted to Judaism, for example, playing out the Christmas story lost its relevance.
Five hundred miles north of St. Louis, my husband and I had created our own Christmas ritual for our family of three. But some years I would feel such a pang of nostalgia for home that I’d fly back to St. Louis for Christmas Day.
By the time my daughter left home I had a new partner, whose family offered yet another set of Christmas practices. But I still felt connected—and somehow loyal—to that long-ago ritual. Until a few weeks ago, when my plan to spend a quiet Christmas Day with my parents, now in their nineties, was upended.
I had enjoyed a blissful Christmas Eve celebration in wintry Minneapolis among kids and grandkids–blissful with the exception of the moment our nearly-four-year-old grandson threw up onto his plate and most of us lost our appetites. We all recovered when we noticed dessert: a tiered display of yummy cookies that had been baked and artfully arranged by two of my granddaughters and their mom.
Early the next morning, as I was heading to the airport, I received a text that my flight had been canceled due to the now infamous 2022 blizzard that raged across the country. Feeling somewhat relieved to escape the weather, I postponed my trip and prepared to help my mother recover from what I anticipated would be deep disappointment.
But my 93-year-old mom is a grown-up. By the time we spoke a few hours later, she and my dad had moved on from the original plan and were looking forward to a lovely Christmas Day brunch with my sister and her son. Still, I worried that my parents had been alone on Christmas Eve; my mother had sung a solo for the afternoon service held at their senior complex, but had missed my brother's annual bash because of Dad’s persistent cough.
“How was your solo, Mom?” I asked, searching for a gentle way to inquire about the rest of what I was sure had been a long, lonely evening.
“You know, I was so relieved after the service was over that when we got back to our apartment I asked Dad to make me a bourbon and club soda,” confessed Mom a little sheepishly. “I guess that makes me an alcoholic,” she teased.
“Hardly,” I replied. “But . . . weren’t you sad to be alone in your apartment on Christmas Eve?”
“Oh, we know everyone’s busy on Christmas Eve,” said my mother cheerfully. “We didn’t mind being alone, and didn’t expect to hear from any of you kids. Besides, we were both tired.”
And that’s when I realized, with a mild jolt, that times had changed.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, especially since I couldn’t even recall the last family Christmas program—my siblings and I had long ago watched our own children leave the nest to pursue new and different holiday activities.
But it wasn’t until a few days after my aborted trip, when my mother described the delightful afternoon she and my father had spent drinking Bloody Marys at my sister’s, that I experienced a new sensation. At first it was simply a feeling of space and openness. Then I noticed a physical lightness. And a few moments later, as an ancient longing began to melt away, my nostalgia for Christmases past morphed into what it was meant to be–a set of beautiful images and the warmth of fond memories.
“Know what I want to do sometime in the future?” I asked my mom, after a pause.
“No, what?” she responded in that musical voice I love.
“Learn to play the harp!” I exclaimed with renewed energy.
“Harp music is so beautiful,” she sighed. “Your Aunt Doris did that a few years before she died.”
I imagined my mom’s older sister as she would have been in her nineties, using her love of music and formidable skills to learn a difficult instrument in spite of encroaching dementia. And I felt her presence as I envisioned a new Christmas Eve ritual–one in which I play my favorite carols for anyone who happens to be around.
All is calm, all is bright, the strings of my harp will proclaim, for whoever wants to listen. This silent, holy night will still be joyful, and not in spite of but because of all my Christmases past.