O Come, Let Us Adore Him

I would first like to say that it is now 2:18am on December 26 (no matter what time it says I published this post), and Christmas has only begun. We will be turning on our Christmas lights for several nights to come.

Secondly, a word on "the Christmas spirit." I was worried that this spirit had forsaken me this Christmas: about half of my December was full of academia and exams and meetings and so forth, and the week I had at home before Christmas was awfully busy for those around me - the Nutcracker, the ending days of school, cotillion, etc. Yet I say to you early this morning after the first day of Christmas proper, that I have never in my life felt such wonder and awe at this holiday. I feel extremely blessed and wonderfully soulful.

The business sped all the way into Christmas Eve, which I spent doing last minute shopping, baking bread for Christmas dinner, answering the door and receiving presents from the neighbors, etc. Even as we approached the day we have marked to begin our celebration, the business spun us around. Finally, I found myself in Salisbury, NC, at the Hubbard Christmas Party - a party held by my dad's family which was a tradition for many years, was on hiatus, and was renewed this year. All the hints of the season were there: wassail, family, the "Chinese auction." But I was frustrated with the energy required to reintroduce myself to family who hadn't seen me recently enough to remember, to tell yet another person where I was in school and what I was doing, to make small talk of large subjects. But I think my Christmas spirit began a bit with the Chinese auction, and here's how that works: each person that plays brings a gift (which may be nice or funny), wrapped in some fashion. All the gifts are put in a pile in the middle of the room, and numbers are drawn. Beginning with he/she that draws number one, each person gets to choose a present, either from the pile or - beginning with number 2 - from a person who has already drawn. If one's present is stolen after one draws, one may choose another present from the pile. Basically, it's best to have the highest number (my sister, Anna, won with number 19) because you have the option of choosing the last gift left in the pile or choosing from any of the gifts that have already been opened. Many of the gifts are gag gifts - my great aunt Ann received an Austin Powers baseball cap that says "Why must I be surrounded by frickin' idiots?" - and it was in the laughing and joking that I first felt the Spirit of the season.

We were a bit late to choir practice for the 11pm Christmas Eve service, but we made it back with enough time, anyway. And the service this year was beautiful. I have learned, recently, that music just makes me cry, and that's that. There's usually one hymn each Sunday that gets me going. And Silent Night did, indeed, get me going. And I could feel all of us standing still and feeling peaceful and waiting in wonder as the Spirit moved over us. And I could feel the Spirit in my tears. And I swear there was divine intervention in the fact that I didn't smack a certain church member who complained, during a very holy moment, that we were sitting when we were supposed to be standing. It was truly beautiful.

This morning was beautiful, too, in a strange way. I actually became very frustrated with my family on the way to church, when I felt that I had been prematurely chastised for being late. But the first hymn this morning was O Come, All Ye Faithful, and by the end I was crying again and didn't really know how to be mad at anyone. And it was a beautiful service - the choir sang a piece called Gesu Bambino which was once a classic of our Service of Nine Lessons and Carols, and a soloist sang Sweet Little Jesus Boy for the introit, and it was simply lovely. Hanging around the house after church was fun, and after a while we went to the movies (the annual Hill family Christmas Day tradition) to see The Family Stone, which was a wonderful movie. It contributed another set of tears to my holiday season. We ate a really great supper together, we drove around and looked at Christmas lights. I reveled in it all.

I have, of course, been in somewhat of a spiritual quandary lately: youth and intellectualism mix to make believing awfully difficult sometimes. And Christmas makes believing in Things Unseen easier, but it hasn't fixed everything. What has been so amazing to me, in the beginnings of this season, is the peace and fullness of soul I have felt, along with the overwhelming conviction that the universe has purpose and that earthly life is not the only life - and yet, an overwhelming conviction that the universe is full of mystery and I surrender that I do not know it all and never will. And I am thankful that the Lord of my tradition sent a son to save us all, to free us from the darkness of mystery and to free us, to invite us, to live in that same mystery's wondrous light.

Anyway, I have written all this to say that I am very blessed and humbled by what I have experienced so far. The company of my family, the friends I have gotten to see (Otto's house, despite being rather random, was completely soul-feeding), the joy of the season, the stillness - all has found me at a strange peace for which I am very thankful. I am going to do my best to keep this spirit alive for the just-over-two-weeks that remain of my break. And I hope that, when the break is over, I will feel freed to walk forward into the norm, seeing it in the new light cast on it by a holiday full soulful joy and spirit-led peace.

Thanks be to God.