What is a perfect Christmas? When God is born in your heart again? Is it perfect when you cry because you know the great joy of God with us as the candles are lit during “Silent Night”? When you have every single member of your family gathered around a Christmas tree? How often have you had a perfect Christmas? I set a pretty high standard for a perfect Christmas, so I can’t say our Christmas was perfect. I can however, say with certainty that our Christmas was almost perfect.
It started with the family gathering on December 23. The date was odd for us this year because we got together before Christmas. Usually we meet after Christmas. We had almost everyone with us – only my sister-in-law Kathy was missing because she was sick. Devon, my nephew, came all the way from Spain to be home for Christmas. We ate, played games, opened presents, sang, talked and laughed. We tried the oven mitt present game and laughed with and at each other. Lots of fun!
On December 24, Tom and I attended church at Lexington UMC in the morning with my parents. We went to Sunday School, ate out with the class at Buck’s Bar and Grill and went caroling at the hospital. We traveled to John and Jackie’s, and then the four of us attended the Family Service at Bethel International UMC. The service was a Children’s program with a youth band, chancel choir, and children’s choir. It was wonderful to see all the families gathered and the kids did a great job. We sang lots of Christmas carols and lighted the candles as we sang Silent Night. The church passed out glow sticks for the children too young for candles, which I thought was a great idea.
As we came out of the service, it started snowing. Beautiful! John drove us all to downtown Columbus to see the lights. We ate supper at a place close to John and Jackie’s first apartment: Tip Top. The food was good and warm on a cold, wintry evening. The only mar of Christmas Eve was the Brown’s horrible game. We were hoping for a Christmas miracle and a win, but at least the Browns have a perfect season going!
Christmas Day was relaxed and laid back. Jackie made cinnamon rolls from scratch and we ate them warm from the oven. We opened presents and everyone got something they really wanted and something that was a surprise. Jackie and I put together a puzzle while Tom and John played video games. Then we had Chinese takeout for lunch / supper and played some games.
Christmas Day was almost perfect. Tom received a gift card for MicroCenter from John and Jackie that we lost for a while. Tom spent a lot of time looking for it and we all looked through boxes and trash and presents. We found it as we were leaving: it was stuck to the bottom of the puzzle box!
So it wasn’t a perfect Christmas, but it was about as good as they get. We spent lots of time with people we love and we worshiped the God we love through all our times together. How was your Christmas?
Thank you, God, for sending Jesus to show us what love means. Because of his birth, we are born into love again. And in our almost perfect Christmases, we get a little taste of the Kingdom of Heaven to come.