Christmas is a-coming and the goose is getting fat

The tree is decorated. Late present shipments finally arrived, and will go out on Monday.  I figure that the Wise Men came on January 6, so I can send gifts up until then with minimal apology.  The Napoliellos will be in Vermont, so I’m going to their house for Christmas Day and Lucille will cook up something delicious and Italian.

I attended a wonderful Christmas concert last week, an all-Bach program in a lovely sandstone Congregational church in Burlington, with a high arched ceiling, splendid wood work, and wreaths hanging on long ribbons from the wall sconces. It reminded me of the church I grew up in which had splendid wood work, and wreaths hanging on not-quite-as-long ribbons from the wall sconces. It wasn’t a big church,  and for reasons I don’t know or can't recall, this church at some point raised funds to build a large addition – perhaps the size of the church footprint – named Memorial Hall. I think there was no center in our town for functions of any size, and Memorial Hall, a concrete-floored concrete-block facility,went up. We held Sunday School and church suppers in that hall, the after-school and weekend recreation leagues played basketball there in the winter and spring, square dance groups danced, the local Boy Scout council had its annual award ceremony there, and Kiwanis and Rotary hosted their pancake breakfasts there. If it rained, the Strawberry Festival was held in Memorial Hall instead of on the lawn.

Our church's 11pm Christmas Eve service was held in Memorial Hall. None of this sissy 7-pm-so-the-kids-can-get-to-bed stuff. Hard core midnight stuff. Memorial Hall would be absolutely full of people.

In the 1950s it was COLD in December in the towns near Syracuse, NY, and that concrete floor was like ice. We wore knee socks and boots just to keep warm (girls didn’t wear pants or jeans in public then). And once the service began it was always dark. Not just because of the late hour, but because the lights were focused on the stage that had been set up for the occasion. Our choir soloists and the ministers sat on stage. The church organist accompanied the singing on a very fine piano. Tall undecorated Christmas trees stood like a small forest on either side of the stage and in front of the stage corners, and three large wreaths hung on the backdrop erected behind the stage.

It was also dark because the Memorial Hall ceiling was at least as high as that of a gymnasium, so on Christmas Eve the illumination from the lights disappeared into that dark ceiling void. The wreaths and trees made it seem like a Christmas service near the edge of a woods.

I think the service was pretty much the same every year, which was not boring but instead comforting; our church's thread of tradition and continuity paralleled the continuity of Christmas observances that have taken place all over the world for thousands of years. My memory is far from perfect but … Every year, we sang “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”, “Joy to the World”, and “O Come, All Ye Faithful”. Every year, our minister would read the Christmas Story from the Gospel of Luke, and one year his sermon was about how important it was to the world that “the Savior” did not suddenly appear as an adult (as John the Baptist did), but was a baby, born to a poor family, who grew up with those he eventually preached to. Every year, our minister would end his sermon by movingly reciting the last two verses of “O Little Town of Bethlehem”. Every year, the service ended with Carol Cox, the choir’s soprano soloist, beautifully singing “O, Holy Night”, all the verses. And then we sang “Silent Night”, and walked out of the dark hall into the dark night, wishing Merry Christmas to our friends.

A teacher blogger who I read wrote this late last week:

The holidays are for celebrating and there are many things worth celebrating, like rich conversations that engage our minds, and good friends and colleagues, those who share resources, offer advice and love, and linger with us over coffee to share our present lives and recall fond memories. We all need these times of refreshment and rejuvenation. I wish them for you this holiday. They are gifts, perhaps even more important than the ones under the tree.

‘Nuff said.

Merry Christmas.