Christmas Keepers

Please share your Christmas traditions as Katie has done here...

I have always loved Christmastime. When our children were young, finally tucked into bed, I would turn off all the lights except for the tree, sit on the couch, and enjoy a magical moment, silent and reminiscent of days gone by. Not every night during the season but always on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve, there would be the remnants of a fire in the fireplace, the contentment of an evening spent with loved ones and the anticipation of more family and fun the next day. It is a ritual suggested by my Mom-something she had done and somehow it connected me to my younger years, as my children now connect me to the years ahead. I bask in feelings of love and of hope in my little oasis, warm and twinkling, and feel connected to the message of Christmas:  Peace on earth, Goodwill toward men. Though it is a loose translation from the gospel of Luke (2:13-14), as “…a great army of heaven’s angels…” sing praise announcing the birth of Jesus, the message is a universal one.

Peace on earth seems so impossible; it would take the miracle of miracles to achieve it. Yet, ninety-eight years ago it happened. On Christmas Eve, in the first year of the Great War, men on either side of the front lines spontaneously declared, at least in their hearts, Peace on earth, Goodwill toward men.  This was not a cease fire, nor was the war just warming up. A million men had already died. At first the men were tentative as they mustered their courage and confidence to venture out to no-man’s land, to chat, exchange gifts and souvenirs, even to play soccer. They sang Christmas carols back and forth and enjoyed the candles the Germans lit on their small Christmas trees, gifts from home. Each side was allowed the dignity of retrieval and burial of the dead. “Christmas had made the bitterest foes friends,” wrote one soldier. They understood the enemy reflected in their own hopes and fears. If it can happen once, though spotty and fleeting, maybe there is a sliver of hope, the possibility of a great miracle, Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward men.

Henry Van Dyke, professor, poet and theologian wrote a sermon more than a century ago called Keeping Christmas, the idea that the spirit of Christmas reminds us to set our “…own little watch, now and then, by the great clock of humanity.” What if, working together, friend and bitter enemy, we can capture this spirit not just for a day, but always? You wouldn’t have to be much of a cynic to consider this idea laughable or naïve. In our own country, we can’t seem to agree on how to stop the train headed over the fiscal cliff, much less figure out a solution in the Middle East. 

As I sit in the dark this Christmas Eve, I will remember that once, the spirit of Christmas moved men to embrace their humanity rather than their differences. I will translate my own feelings of love and hope into a little prayer for a big miracle, Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward men. - Katie