Apparently, I’ve never shied away from drawing attention to myself.
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I became famous in 1969. The Ponca City News published a picture of me in my homemade Santa costume which I proudly wore for the annual main street “Holiday Pet Parade.” Christmas was a wonderful, yet simple time in 1969. I was spellbound by Conoco’s massive employee Christmas party where we entered in shifts and got a stocking full of unbreakable walnuts. I frantically browsed through the Sears & Roebuck Christmas catalogue circling eagerly wanted toys with a smudgy, red crayon. My excitement feverishly grew towards Christmas day amidst a flurry of sugar, tinsel and giant Christmas lights that were too hot to touch.
Today Christmas is different. Much different. Tonight my church hosts our annual Living Nativity. Free camel rides, a petting zoo and photo-ops in the costumes of shepherds, wise women and cherubs. Santa will not be in attendance. Toys will not be distributed. Another story will be told– a story about the ancient meaning of Christmas. A story for families to see and share. A story about a divine love so great that a child was given. A child who would transform everything.
On Sunday night the emphasis changes again. For seventeen years we have hosted a candlelight service for grieving parents. They come and remember. They come and say their child’s name in a public gathering. They find others who understand the unique pain of losing a child. The songs are not joyful. There are no fa-la-la-la-las. It is a remedy against the especially difficult memories of the holiday season. It is a Christmas I would have never imagined all those years ago. A Christmas with a love so bright that it can embrace our deepest pain and our darkest aloneness.
As you walk in our church there is a Christmas tree, complete with colored lights and sparkling tinsel. We are all invited to take an ornament with us. Each ornament has an item listed that will be given. No, it is not the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle or the Hot Wheels Daredevil Mountain Challenge. It is food. We gather gifts of food and place it under our tree. Food distributed by Cooperative Emergency Outreach so families in Washington County can eat. My sticky-fingered childhood of candy canes and grandmother’s divinity never imagined a Christmas where hungry children needed peanut butter and canned soup. Somewhere along the way Christmas changed from getting…to giving.
Yes, I still fall into the old ways of over-consumption and too much sugar. But through the years Christmas has blossomed. It has grown. It has expanded into something beautiful and complex and rugged. It has become much more like what God intended all along.