Slow Down and Welcome Christmas

"The Christmas spirit comes on me more slowly than it used to," writes
Joan Mills, a mother of three children, in her book Christmas Coming. "But
it comes, it comes. Middle-aged (most of the time) and jaded (some of the
time), I complain of plastic sentiment, days too brief, bones too weary.
Scrooge stands at my elbow muttering, "Bah!" and "Humbug!" as I total the
bills. But when I acknowledge the child I once was (and still am,
somewhere within), the spirit of Christmas irresistibly descends."

"For Christmas is truly for children those we have, and those we have been
ourselves. It is the keeping-place for memories of our age in lovely
ritual and simplicities.

"I'm tired," I say fretfully. "There's just too much to do! Must we make
so much of Christmas?" "Yes!" they say flatly.

"But bayberry, pine and cinnamon scent the shadowed room. Snow lies in
quiet beauty outside. I hear someone downstairs turning on the tree lights
while another admires. I lie very still in the dark. From the church in
the village on the far side of the woods, carillon notes fall faint and
sweet on winter clear air.

"Silent night," my heart repeats softly. Holy night. All is calm All is
bright.

"As I take the stairs lightly going down, no bones weary now, my whole
self is thankful; once again, I am flooded with the certainty (call it
faith) that there's goodness in the world, and love endures."

Leonard Sweet, adapting Joan Mills, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com