Merry Christmas to All and to All....

December 24th.

Remember when you were little, Christmas Eve was the most exciting day of the year?

You could barely move with the anticipation of Christmas.

The weeks leading up to Christmas were beautiful music, leading up to a crescendo of magic and memories that only Christmas morning could bring.

Today, every Christmas Carol makes me cry. I teach a religion class where not ONE of 12 seventh graders could tell me the real Christmas Story.

When I was a little girl, Christmas eve was the wildest time you could ever see. Family from all over the globe (which then covered about 35 square miles I figure) came for dinner and through the smoke and spilled beer I learned a lot about dysfunction and love. I miss those Christmases.

Now, they don't sell Rheingold beer any more, and almost every person in every Christmas memory of my youth are celebrating at a table that I have not yet been asked to join. The adult table in heaven I guess you would call it.

So, I try to make memories for my family. Traditions that hopefully they will carry on with their children, and that day, I will sit back and smile...a little.

For the day that the Lord calls me to join his table, joy will fill my heart. And the ones still here will remember me at Christmas.

Do you remember me?
I sat upon your knee
I wrote to you with childhood fantasies.

Well, I'm all grown-up now,
And still need help somehow.
I'm not a child,
But my heart still can dream.

So here's my lifelong wish,
My grown-up Christmas list.
Not for myself, but for a world in need.

No more lives torn apart,
That wars would never start,
And time would heal all hearts.

And everyone would have a friend,
And right would always win,
And love would never end.
This is my grown-up Christmas list.

As children we believed
The grandest sight to see
Was something lovely wrapped beneath our tree.
Well heaven surely knows
That packages and bows
Can never heal a hurting human soul.

What is this illusion called the innocence of youth?
Maybe only in our blind belief can we ever find the truth.