There are two main reasons to celebrate this wonderful time of year.
The first that should be front and center for Christians is the celebration of the birth of the Christchild who was promised by God to his people.
The second is this can be a time of renewal, peace and treasured memories for all. After Thanksgiving, this is the holiday that more people and families get together and celebrate.
You know how you get those sappy, internet Christmas stories via email?
Well this one is mine, and I'm sharing with you anyway. Merry Christmas!
My Christmas Under A Tracer Filled Sky
One of my most memorable Christmas's was spent far away from my family, but
close to the ancient trade route for myrrh. You may remember that myrrh is
one of the presents given to the parents of baby Jesus by the wise men. It
grows in the northeastern provinces of what we now call Somalia.
Now Somalia in December 1992 was not a particularly peaceful place. The
United States military had just embarked on a humanitarian assistance
mission to stop the mass starvation aggravated a one-year drought and by
years of civil war. Children were dying on western television screens, and
poor African mothers were crying and destitute. Chaos and disruption were
what we had expected, and it is precisely what we found there.
Not that getting over there had been easy on my family or me. My unit was
to leave the ice storms and blizzard conditions of upstate New York for the
equatorial summer of dry, dusty Somalia. I was actually getting there a
week behind my unit though, because my eight-year old son had just been
diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, and had spent three days hospitalized in
intensive care. Fortunately my commander could spare me until my son was
released to go home. My son had twice nearly died, but a week later I was
leaving him, his Florida-born mother and three other Army brats snow-bound a
thousand miles from our nearest relatives.
And so I got into Somalia on Christmas Eve.
My driver had picked me up at the airport under a late afternoon sky, and
we fueled the vehicle in preparation for a long drive up-country. But as we
pumped diesel into our truck, pressure building in the tank forcefully
ejected the nozzle, jammed the valve open and sprayed my driver with dozens
of gallons of stinging hot diesel fuel from head to toe. By the time we
could get stop the fuel from spilling, it was hundreds of gallons.
Fortunately we found a medical aid station, where my Specialist cleaned up
and turned into an instant Captain, courtesy of one of my spare sets of
desert camoflague uniforms.
By now it was close to nightfall, and too dangerous to drive the hundred or
so miles to link up with my unit. Taking the advice of my newly found
Captain, we decided to go watch the five o'clock follies (the daily
in-theater news briefing) on the backside of the old American embassy
compound, and then find a place inside the 10th Mountain Division's
headquarters to bed down for the night. Nothing ran on time in Somalia;
this day was the worst. The press briefing didn't start until nine, and by
the time we were picking our way through the rubble of the embassy looking
for a place to sleep among the other soldiers of our 10th Mountain Division,
it was almost midnight.
Mogadishu at night has one really bad problem. The daily air current
reverses course, and the cooling sea breeze of day becomes the hot desert
wind of night. Given the location of the totally gutted U.S. embassy
compound, this meant that the overpowering smell rolling over us was that of
a city's worth of raw sewage, smoke, khat, and the scent of tens of
thousands of unwashed bodies perfuming the night. But, once you kicked
enough debris away and made a bed for yourself in the sand and broken
concrete, you finally noticed that the sky was at least clear (no rain!).
There was no ambient light to block your viewing of thousands of bright
stars, some of them southern hemisphere constellations -- except for the
occasional streak of red and green falling across the cityscape. That was
the deflection of fifty and fifty one-caliber tracer bullets, and they are a
strangely pretty sight of reds and greens, if one is sufficiently far enough
away from them. The bullets were falling far enough away; they were just
harmless soundless staccato streaks. In fact the only accompanying sound
was the distant crump and thud of mortar fire well on the edges of the city,
and the occasional far-off din of a people at war with themselves.
And, of course, the colorful language of soldiers. Cursing, unloading gear,
rattling around inside of rucksacks looking for comfort items, and
scratching among trash, rebar and concrete for comfortable holes to lay out
a sleeping mat and a poncho liner.
G@&$8m this, and m!#%*(#UK that, and
well, the general unhappiness with the dust, the smell, the being on the
wrong side of the world at precisely the wrong time of the year, and away
from our families. It could have been hundreds of equally unhappy campers
voices, it certainly was dozens of sergeants and officers close by that
provided the strangest capiphony of general disgust with the events that
life had landed them in, into the nether world of not-quite-a-combat-zone,
but certainly not-welcome-wagon-situation either.
All of sudden, out of the dark, came the loud declarations of "MERRY
CHRISTMAS! JESUS CHRIST IS BORN TODAY! MERRY CHRISTMAS!" And it repeated,
over and over, moving toward and into our little area of camp. Two Army
chaplains had decided to extend the season's greetings, at a time and a
place that desperately needed it. Onward they proceeded, proclaiming their
news, guided faintly by a red-filtered flashlight. I looked at my watch -
it was midnight, or shortly thereafter -- the new Christmas morn.
I'd like to tell you that everything in Somalia, the earth's ancient source
of myrrh once gifted to Christ, turned out for the best that next year, but
it didn't. Like the funeral spice that it is, myrrh portended the gathering
gloom for a people that seem to still be very far from the love of God and
from accepting His grace. But on that one night, in that very moment, the
city it seemed fell completely still, the last crump and thud of mortar
faded in the night air, and soldiers rolled over to whisper 'Merry
Christmas' to each other, as peace descended on our camp. While the voices
of our caroling Chaplains continued on to other distant pockets of (probably
also cursing) soldiers, we in our area of fell asleep, with the Gospel
proclaimed and the strange sight of fading ricocheting tracers arcing across
the starscape.
It was my Christmas under a tracer filled sky, one decade ago tonight.
God has been good to me in those inteveining years. Yes at various times
I've been shot at, hospitalized, unemployed and broke. But I will always
remember Christmas in a less fortunate place, and that the Good News then is
the same Good News now. Jesus is born, and we can have salvation and faith
through Him, even in the midst of sorrows and misfortunes. While its great
to sleep in your own bed at night, to not have to eat your food out of brown
plastic bags, and to not have anyone shooting at you -- well, God still
loves you and calls to you even if you are lying in the broken concrete half
a world away. He calls just as surely as those two Chaplains did. Even if
it doesn't seem to make sense, take the time to listen for the story of
Jesus before you roll over and go to sleep tonight. Get out a Bible and
read the Gospel of Luke, or turn on a TV to watch a church service, or
better yet go attend a Christmas eve church service in your town tonight.
This Christmas may our most-high God bless and keep you and your family,
wherever the love of His Son Jesus Christ and the in-dwelling of His Holy
Spirit finds you.
Try to find a copy of Oh Holy Night by Josh Groban and you will hear how it should be sung. No whiney soprano there.
My worst Christmas memory is 1989 ...I had to drive from Scranton, PA to Columbus Ohio....and there was a horrible snow storm...i was thinking of moving south before then and driving in that snowstorm made me more determined to leave the horribkle north....also. Billy Martin died that day and my Cincinnati Bengals lost that day to miss a plaoyoff spot.
For best Christmas how about Christmas 2000 and we realized that this would be the LAST christmas of Bill Clinton presidency! YIPPEEE!!!!!!!
As a child all my Christmasses were bright and happy. I had a wonderful family. They are all gone now.
Christmas 1994, shortly after my mother had been widowed (step father's death) and had also been diagnosed with Alzheimers, I decided to have a Christmas bash to end all.
I brought the young and their parents in the family to Ft. Lauderdale and assembled the old family members and threw in friends, ex's, and some inlaws. We had a great time. I cooked for 26 that day and had a wonderful time doing it.
There was such a feeling of happiness in that house that night. I knew I was going to have to sell the house come the new year, a place the folks had lived for 35 years. It was the gathering place of the clan, but now it had to go.
We laughed, and gossiped and thanked God for our blessings.
We sang Xmas carols we ate and we ate. Nobody wanted to leave.
We started at 2PM and the last folks left after midnight.
It was the last time we were all together and a memory
we will all keep close. No one is left here in our town except hubby and me.
My Grammie, my Aunt Lou and the rest... I would give a lot to be with them just one more time...
Learning as a child you give your animals all they can eat on Christmas Eve - because they made room in the manger for Jesus. An old Swedish tradition, from my father who I later found out that for my 4-year old Christmas in 1959, spent most of the night out in a cold Idaho garage filing down a piece of metal to match a missing part to my new Murray Champion pedal car so that I wouldn't be diasppointed on Christmas morning. I still have the pedal car.