Magical Christmas Eve

When I was young, perhaps around 10 years old, there was a steam engine that I wanted for Christmas.  It was back when they had the giant Montgomery Ward and Sears Wishbook catalogs.  In one catalog was a model steam engine, with a whistle and a governor and a reversing lever.  I know I got other presents that year but this present was the only one I really wanted.  I remember one night, on a Christmas eve long ago, I went out into the living room after everyone had gone to bed.  The house was completely dark, except for the lights on the Christmas tree, which were the multi-colored type.  The living room was lit in a dull ruddy glow, and the tree was...there's really no other word but, intoxicating.  I was totally captivated by the rainbow of colors of lights, and the plastic icicles reflecting the colors a thousand times over.  Underneath the tree were many presents, but for the moment I was concerned with only one.  A gold-wrapped box with a red ribbon and bow had my name on it.  I knew it was the steam engine I had asked for.  A simple thing like that, to me as a child, was bliss.  All this emotion came together in an instant, and I fell in love with the idea of Christmas.  

The story of Christmas has many meanings to many people.  Some look at it in a classical religious context.  Some think of it as a worship of the turning of the season.  Some people think it's about buying lots and lots of presents.  Well, I actually think it's about all those things, and more.  It is no accident that Christmas takes place near the shortest day of the year.  Those days, the days that have more darkness than any others, are more than just the accident of celestial mechanics.  They represent, in a very real sense, the long, dark night of the soul.  The time when things seem at their worst.  In the world of nature, this is winter, when nothing grows, and all is cold and dark.  In the world of the mind, this is depression, despair, desperation. 

And here, in the midst of the darkness, in the endless biting cold, when all seems dead and dying, comes the light.  Not just one light, but many lights.  Lights in all the colors of creation, gleaming, glowing, chasing the shadows.  Sparks of brilliance that throw cheer and laughter at despair and despondency.  They give a warmth of light and levity that throw-off the cold shoulder of the winter outside. 

This is what Christmas means to me.  Is it about buying presents?  Yes!  Giving and receiving presents brings joy to everybody in the wintry season.  Is it about the turning of the season?  Of course!  Celebrate the physical, and symbolic, death of the old and birth of the new.  Is it about religious tradition?  Absolutely!  This is not the place to go into that in too much depth, but Christmas is also about the death and rebirth of our bodies, and our minds.  The key to it all seems to be to laugh at the darkness, in the world around us and in our own souls, just at the time when things seem their worst.  Do not be defeated by the engulfing dark.  Light a candle, and the dark goes away.  It's true in the outside world, and it's true in the world that lies within ourselves.