Grown Up Christmas List

My Wishes for All Mankind

I am a full-on Christmas lover. I embrace it all. I don’t get all fussy about the materialism or the made up Santa stories or how people go about celebrating. I listen to “O Holy Night” and “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”. I watch “The Nativity” and “The Grinch”. I love Christmas parties and Christmas Eve Service. Go ahead and judge me now.

Christmas, for me, is like the oasis in the desert that is winter. It’s the bright lights in the darkness, the warmth in the frigid Northwest December. I like to transform our house into a cozy scene from a Good Housekeeping. I take down our usual wall décor and go all in. I even decorate the bathroom. Go ahead and judge me now.

I have to admit, the older I get, the less energetic I am about it. It’s a lot of work. So the last couple years I have enlisted the help of our oldest grandchild to get it done. She’s a decorator extraordinaire who understands that you have to have the right placement of red, white and silver on the tree and is willing to climb on the furniture to place the wall décor in all the right spots. She’s into the cheesy Christmas Amazon Alexa playlist as much as I am. We spend a whole day with the tunes, the snacks, the discussion about where we put things last year and should we change things up. It kicks the season off right.

From there it’s often a flurry of activity that includes shopping, Christmas gatherings, school events for the grands, baking, wrapping…… all the things that make the season bright! December usually flies by and the family Christmas Day festivities arrive right on time. I love it all. But I have to admit that my very favorite time comes late on Christmas Eve. It’s that pause in the busyness that sets my heart right where it needs to be. I turn on the sacred music, turn off all the lights except the tree, pour a glass of wine and plop on the couch to take it all in and remember why I celebrate. One of my favorite songs is “Mary, Did You Know?” and as it plays, I think about the young couple heading to Bethlehem to take part in the census and ending up with a tiny Savior in a manger. I know, I know…..it probably didn’t happen on December 25^th but whatever. It’s that moment that Christmas is real to me.

In those quiet, peace-filled moments in front of the tree, I think about our world and the people who live in it. Not everyone embraces or feels those happy Christmas memories and moments. There are a lot of hurting souls. There are conflicts and wars. There is disparity and inequity. There’s pain and grief. This planet we live on is a messy mess. Our priorities are often upside down. But we’re all in the mess together.

So on Christmas Eve, in the quiet contemplation, I wish for all mankind to know that peaceful feeling that I experience in those moments. I wish for food in hungry bellies, and shelter for those without. I wish for an absence of conflict and an end to suffering. I wish for the love of family and warm hugs from friends. And in those moments, I pray for God to intervene in the messy mess. I am humbled by my own comfort and blessings. I wish for every single person to feel loved and secure and satisfied, even if only for one night.

Each and every one of you, my readers, are precious gifts to me. So my wish for all of you is to know joy and peace whether you celebrate Christmas or not. And I’m sending warm hugs – can you feel them? Blessings to all!