I didn’t even know she knew it.
“And there were in the same country, shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night,” she said, her voice as clear as the midnight when He came.
“And the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shown round about them, AND,” she paused dramatically, eyes big as the baubles we were hanging.
“They were sOOOOOOOre afraid.”
She looked like she knew just how those shepherds felt. In that instant, I knew how Mary must have felt. In that instant, a five-year-old taught me all I need to know about Christmas.
The next year, as we trimmed the tree, she did it again, only that time it was a song.
“Christmas is for children,” sang my child.
She was right, way back then, and it’s still true. Christmas is for children.
Christmas is for children to teach us grownups that innocence is better than jaded sophistication.
Christmas is for children to teach us adults that open hearts are better than closed minds.
Christmas is for children to teach us big folk that simple is better than complicated.
We all know that, when we are little, but we forget.
Why, I nearly forgot the best Christmas present I ever bought.
It was a potato bin. A four-legged, rectangular, brown plastic potato bin. I was eight years old when I bought it in the five and dime. It must have cost at least two dollars, and I must have spent at least two hours deliberating between it and a new flour sifter. You take your time when you’re picking out a gift for your mother.
It was the first gift I ever bought with my own money. I wanted it to be perfect. In my 8-year-old, didn’t-know-any-better, opinion, it was.
It never occurred to me that Mama might not want a new potato bun for Christmas. I bought it for her, didn’t I? With my own money, didn’t I?
Of course, she wanted it.
She was crazy about it. She told me so, over and over. She’s still telling me. She still has potatoes in it. I don’t think she’d trade that brown hunk of junk potato bin for a hunk of solid gold.
Like I said, Christmas is for children.
I don’t know what dear old Bing thought about when he sang White Christmas. I just know what I think when I listen.
You know what snow does?
Snow takes a junkyard, covers it up and gives us beauty. Snow takes a trash dump, frosts it gently and gives us loveliness.
Snow takes every eyesore and gives us an eyeful.
Snow gives us back our innocence. If only for a moment.
So does Christmas.
For one annual shining moment Christmas does for the world’s people what a little snowfall does for the world.
It wipes our slate clean. It hides the warts. It makes us remember the good things we used to know, when we were children.
I know a fine lady down in Columbus who’s never stopped being a child about Christmas. She loves it. Waits for it. Plans for it. Works at it.
About Nov. 1, she looks at the mahogany secretary and begins to see the Advent wreath sitting there. She looks at the upright piano and begins to hear the carols sung.
Every year she decorates her house top to bottom, side to side, inside out. She decorates so thoroughly and so well that when time comes to take down the decorations, invariably she forgets something.
In April she will find a little tin soldier still standing guard on a shelf in the hall. In July she’ll spot a tiny red ball, still knotted into the cord of a window shade.
One year, as she got out the decorations in preparation for yet another Christmas season, she noticed broad grins on her daughters’ faces. Gleefully, they led her to the kitchen, pointing out a wee paper mache angel perched atop the bread box.
The tiny cherub had been there 12 whole months.
“You finally did it, you finally did it, Mom,” they chorused. “You forgot one for a whole year.”
The mother let them have their laugh. Quietly she lifted up the tiny, haloed figure and, with a smile as gentle as the angel’s, she spoke.
“I didn’t forget, dears. That little angel helps me keep Christmas with me all year.”
Ah, yes. A White Christmas.
Let’s have one this year. Whether it snows or not.
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