WHERE YOU SPEND CHRISTMAS

It was a few days before Christmas

And all through the hospital,

patients were saying, "Why, this is impossible!

"To be stuck in this place at this time of year!

"To  be oh, so sick as Christmas draws near!"

It's not ideal, I will confess,

The circumstances are not the best.

No turkey, no taters, no pumpkin pie.

No reindeer flying in the sky.

No  stockings hung by the chimney stack.

Of Christmas cheer, a dismal lack.

No carols sung, no candles aglow.

And not even a hint of snow!

It's sure not the Christmas we planned for all year.

And it's hard to find any Christmas cheer.

But let me remind you, before you turn glum

That despite your locale, Christmas will come.

It came long ago to a manger afar

No colorful lights, but a bright shining star.

The Infant had no soft baby things

Just straw and hay and three gifts from the Kings.

Where you spend Christmas has nothing to do

With the gift of a Savior God sent to you.

Whether at home or away this Christmas tide

The reason for the season cannot be denied.

Some will spend Christmas in foreign land

Protecting our shores so our freedoms will stand.

And some will man the emergency phones

Or serve meals to those homeless or alone.

No matter where you spend Christmas this year

Be glad in your hearts; Jesus is here!

Our Savior's the gift that brings true light.

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

IT DOESN'T FEEL LIKE CHRISTMAS

Bonnie and I decided against a Christmas tree. Our income, cut in half, didn’t really lend itself to spending forty dollars on a tree that would be up for two weeks then out with the trash. The pile of medical bills that continued to grow on the dining room table was an additional reminder of the need to use our funds wisely. Plus, we reasoned, we weren’t sure the two of us—with the help of an adolescent boy—could wrestle a six-foot evergreen onto the top of my ancient Celebrity. So, no tree.

It was the right decision, my daughter and I told each other. With full-time jobs and college classes and hospital visits to make each day, we needed to conserve our energies. I liberated my grandmother’s ceramic light up tree—the one that had sat atop her television console for fifteen years—and set it up on an end table in the living room.
“Behold,” I said, “our Christmas tree.  Already decorated.”
“Perfect,” said Bonnie. Her cheer seemed strained. But we were all a little bit strained. Ron’s last lab results had not been promising. An infection, yet unnamed, still raged through his weakened body. It looked like another holiday would be celebrated in a hospital room. “It will be enough this year.”

Her little brother was not convinced. At twelve, Allen hovered somewhere in between giving up on the reality of Santa Claus and retaining faint hope that Christmas magic still existed. “Where will we put the presents?” he asked. “There’s no room under the tree.”

“I’ve got it!” shouted his sister. She ran out the backdoor and returned with the Flexible Flyer Sled we hauled out of the basement each winter. Plunking the sled down next to our ceramic tree, she declared it the perfect spot for presents.

"Not much room,” Allen said glumly. “Can’t put too many presents on that.”

Bonnie and I looked at each other sadly. The truth was that there would not be a lot of presents this year. She hugged her brother. “It’ll be fine,” she told him. “You’ll see.”

 Allen remained skeptical. “Just doesn’t feel like Christmas.”

We forced as much holiday cheer as we could into the house, stringing garland on the mantel and lights around the door. Each day when I came home from the hospital, I dropped my school bag and plunked a Christmas CD into the player. We ate our spaghetti or pizza suppers by candlelight, singing along to the carols.  At night, after Allen had checked all the door locks twice and made sure the spotlight in the backyard was turned on because “I’m the man of the house now and I have to make sure you girls are safe”, he went up to bed, and Bonnie and I planned out Christmas.

 We had a turkey the church had given us at Thanksgiving and which we hadn’t used because Thanksgiving had brought with it an emergency surgery on Ron’s pancreas. We had some canned goods in the pantry and enough money between the two of us to manage the rest of a Christmas supper, even if we needed to transport it to the hospital.

And while the presents were few, we had things for Allen and silly items to stuff into Christmas stockings. And we had our white porcelain crèche on the mantel, the one Ron had given me piece by piece each Christmas.

But despite the forced cheer, part of me agreed with Allen. It just didn’t feel like Christmas. Every morning when I left to teach my middle school classes, I noted the empty corner of the living room where the tree should stand, adorned with the plastic ornaments Dad brought home from Germany when he was in the Army and the glass bells that had hung on my grandmother’s tree. The front of the house looked bare without our plastic Nativity set; the complicated lighting had been beyond Bonnie and me.

The hospital I visited each day had its own forced cheer: trees in the lobby, golden garland hanging from the ceiling, red poinsettias clustered into pots in the cafeteria. Each patient’s door held a small red Christmas stocking. 

Still, it didn’t really feel like Christmas. The closer we got to December 25, the more excitement ranged in the halls of my middle school. And the more depressing was the news from the hospital. As Ron battled against the infection, his damaged pancreas refused to process food so once again he needed a tube to provide nutrients. No turkey for him. In the ten months since the car accident that had almost cost him his life, we had spent almost every holiday in a hospital room. What kind of Christmas would it be? I asked myself. No tree. Few presents.

It wasn’t about the tree, I knew. Or the presents. Since accepting Jesus as my Savior when I was fourteen, the meaning of Christmas was deeper and more spiritual. I sang “O Holy Night” on my way to school each morning, reminding myself that even if there were no presents on the Flexible Flyer Sled for me beneath our ceramic Christmas tree, it would still be a meaningful Christmas. Even if there was no special gift from my spouse of 25 years, no “just because” gift that wasn’t a need but a want, we would be grateful to be together and joyful that Ron was still alive.

And we would all be together. Dennis would be home on semester break and stay with us for two weeks before going back to the city. Bonnie would have no classes at community college and the daycare center where she worked would be closed.  And Allen and I would have two weeks off from middle school. We could spend more time visiting Ron, trying to make it feel like Christmas to him.

I tried to ignore the empty corner in the living room. I tried even harder to ignore the empty corner of my heart.

It was four days before Christmas and Bonnie and Allen and I huddled under blankets in the living room to converse electricity, munching on popcorn and watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Dennis would be home tomorrow and there was a slim chance the doctors would allow Ron home for Christmas Day. It would, we told ourselves, feel more like Christmas.

There was a knock at the door. The kids and I looked at each other. We weren’t expecting anyone. The minister had already stopped by with a love offering taken up for us, money we would put towards the mortgage. Bonnie looked out the window. “Someone with a truck,” she said. I went to open the door.

And there on our steps stood two church members. Between them they held a beautiful and fragrant Douglas fir.
“Wow!” shouted Allen. “That’s some tree! Is it for us?” He scampered to help Rich bring it into the house.
I hugged Rose tightly. “How did you know?” I asked her.
She smiled. “Pastor Bill called us. We had asked what we could do to help you. He said you didn’t have a tree.”
Tears threatened to spill from my eyes. “Bonnie and I just couldn’t…we didn’t…thank you. Thank you!”
Rose beamed. “It is our pleasure.”
Allen ran for the boxes of ornaments we had stowed away for another year, and Rich set the tree up in the vacant corner with expert care. Bonnie set the tea kettle to boil and made hot chocolate. My heart was bursting with love and gratitude to God and His two servants.
But God had one more surprise for me. Rose reached into her bag and handed me a red box wrapped with a big white bow. “We saw Ron today,” she said. “And he asked me to buy you this. So, this present,” she said, “is from your husband.”
I hugged Rose tightly and let the tears flow. She patted my shoulder. “I know, honey,” she whispered, “and so does God.”
Rich plugged in the lights on our beautiful Christmas tree, given to us with love.
“Now,” declared Allen, “it feels like Christmas.”

  

The Ghosts of Christmas Past

"Who, and what are you?" Scrooge demanded.
"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."
"Long Past?" inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish stature.
"No. Your past."

The Ghost of Christmas Past greets me at the doorway of the Emergency Room. Instantly, I am catapulted back to other holidays spent in hospital, waiting for tests or surgeries or hope. The waiting room is almost vacant, and decorations of pink and purple hang on the artificial pine tree and from the ceiling. They are cheerful colors, but lack the warmth of traditional Christmas red and green. "Happy Holidays," says the guard who takes my purse and asks me if I am carrying any knives or guns.

"Merry Christmas, " I respond. "I am sorry you have to be here today." She shrugs and beckons me through the metal detector while she rifles through my purse for contraband, then nods at me. The Ghost of Christmas Past, not used to such newfangled technology, has waited for me on the other side and joins me in my walk down the corridor I know only too well. Another urinary tract infection has sent Ron to the hospital early this morning and he now awaits a CT scan. Bah, humbug.

"Come in!" exclaimed the Ghost. "Come in, and know me better, man."
Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them.

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," said the Spirit. "Look upon me.

Christmas Present is waiting at the house. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, and the kids--all grownups--are coming at 3:00 for supper. I could call them and tell them not to come, of course, and they would understand. But life goes on. The lessons learned from the last fifteen years assures us of this: a holiday celebrated in hospital is still a holiday. And my grown-up offspring have not all been in the same place at the same time since October.


Ron is relatively cheerful. The morphine infusion helps. There are times I wish I had one. He may or may not be home in time for dinner. In the meantime, plans will go on. I will, as usual, balance it all out. I leave before he comes back from the CT scan. I will check back later to see how he is doing.

There is no parking charge today, a Christmas gift from the good people of Colonial Parking. I have probably paid enough in parking fees over the last fifteen years to warrant my own VIP spot. On the drive back home, alone, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come hovers over my head; is this, then, what my life is doomed to be like? Will I forever be trying to outrun the shadows of Ron' illnesses?

"I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come?" said Scrooge.
The Spirit answered not, but pointed downward with its hand.
"You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us," Scrooge pursued. "Is that so, Spirit?"

The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer he received.

Back home, Allen and I turn on some Christmas music and start dinner, trying to keep our own Christmas spirits alive. Allen wishes for "just a little snow" to make it look more like Christmas, but we agree that Christmas is more a feeling than scenery. "Sometimes," says my son, "people act more like Scrooge." And as I prepare the potato casserole for the oven, I think this over.

For those who have never had 9th grade English, let me give you a brief lesson. Ebenezer Scrooge is the protagonist of Charles Dickens' 1843 story, "A Christmas Carol," an essay written for the dual purpose of paying off debts Dickens owed to his publisher and bringing to public attention the plight of the poor in Victorian England. In fact, while Christmas has been celebrated since the fourth century when Pope Julius I chose December 25 as the day to mark the "Feast of the Nativity," it was Dickens' story that shaped much of our Christmas traditions of today, such as "goodwill and peace to all men." Since the publication of  "A Christmas Carol", the story has never been out of print and has been adapted for 22 stage productions, 2 operas, 4 recordings, at least 10 radio broadcasts, 49 loosely based TV show adaptations and 20 film versions. "Carol" is a story of redemption, of the ability of one man to remake himself with the help of supernatural beings. Dickens himself was not overly religious in the traditional sense and the birth of Jesus as the reason for Christmas is only referred to in Bob Cratchit's comment about Tiny Tim: 

"Somehow he gets thoughtful sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see."

The story of redemption is prevalent this time of year; just look to the black and white Hollywood classics to see what I mean. Beginning with "Penny Serenade" in 1941, all the way through 1946's "It's a Wonderful Life" and ending with "Miracle on 34th Street" circa 1947, the story of redemption through the elusive Christmas spirit is clear. We may all, as Allen observes, act a little like Scrooge at times, but with a little help from our friends--even supernatural ones--we can change.

And this is what carries me through another Christmas Day, waiting for a call from the hospital, humming Christmas Carols as I spike the punch bowl. (Hey, spirits can help in more ways than one.) Redemption is possible. Change is possible.

"What's to-day?" cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.
"Eh?" returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.
"What's to-day, my fine fellow?" said Scrooge.
"To-day?" replied the boy.  "Why, Christmas Day."

"It's Christmas Day!" said Scrooge to himself.  "I haven't missed it.  The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like.  Of course they can.  Of course they can.  

There is always, then, hope. The Scrooge who exclaimed "Bah, humbug!" to nephew Fred's invitation to dine is replaced by the man who  "knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge."

Redemption of any kind does not, Ebenzer reminds me, depend on snow or presents or turkey dinner or the date on the calender. It depends on how we view and hold Christmas and all its meanings forever in our hearts. It is purposeful; we make the choice to keep it, or not to keep it.


"I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!" Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed.  "The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me.  Oh Jacob Marley!  Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this.  I say it on my knees, old Jacob, on my knees!"

May all of you keep Christmas forever in your hearts!

Even in hospital.