Christmas Eve, 2023.
As the tired old opening line goes, “it was a dark and foggy night.” Christmas Eve in north central Wisconsin and the temperature is hovering at just below 50 degrees Fahrenheit. There will be no white Christmas here. Somehow, the warmth, drizzle, and fog creates an alien environment. Candlelight service at church only emphasizes the darkness as the chilly damp attacks my knees. I am alone since Mike has opted to stay home. While other members of the congregation stand to sing Christmas carols, I sit. Thanks to the lingering effects of a respiratory illness, I have no voice to sing with along with them.
It’s a short service, over in less than an hour. I think that’s a record for our new pastor. I should probably stop calling him “new” since he’s now been here for more than a year. There’s no children’s program this year. The woman who directed last year’s program is with her husband’s family this holiday. So except for Bogdan’s son and Matthew and Nicole’s two boys who are protesting their enforced immobility loudly, it’s just the grown-ups. In fact, the gathering is so small it could probably fit in my tiny living room, yet we are spread out from one end of the sanctuary to the other. Despite the dim lights, there is a warmth and a brightness inside.
Service over, I limp alone to my car, the only one on the street. Everyone else parked in the lot. Perhaps one-third of the windows of the assisted living complex across the street sport lighted trees or wreaths. The city decorations — ice blue lights wrapping the street lamps — do little to brighten the fog. And fog there is, heavy enough to mist my car’s windows.
It’s eerie driving through town in the fog. On Central, the blue lights are barely visible. Storefronts attempt to make up for the lack of cheer with multi-colored or white lit displays, but the fog mutes them. The streets are deserted, shops closed. Churches I pass on my drive home still have a smattering of cars in their parking lots, but none, not even the Catholic churches, have a midnight service any longer. Mom used to love those. Turning onto my own street, four homes have lavish outdoor decorations, three more have lit trees in their windows. The rest are dark. My own decorations are modest: battery operated candles in the front windows and an illuminated wreath on the door. And the fog continues to mute everything. It’s quiet. Very quiet.
I am accustomed to noisy, crowded Christmas eves; first in my parents’ home, then at my brother’s. is the 45th Christmas without my Dad, the sixteenth without my oldest brother Tom, the fifteenth without Mom, the twelfth without my older brother Ken, and the third without my oldest sister Carole. Sue and her husband are in Arizona. Mike is next door with his dog. So I am alone in this foggy, quiet night.
I’m not exactly grieving the loss of my traditional, family-filled holiday. Oh, sure, the grief might still be there in the background, but it’s not intrusive. It just doesn’t feel like Christmas. The external stimuli of snow and cold are missing. Family is missing. Tomorrow, I will prepare a Christmas dinner for Mike and me. We will open our modest presents. As soon as that is done, he will retreat to his own house and his dog. He’ll be back for sandwiches at supper time, but then he’s gone again. Mike isn’t given to conversation so our meals together are eaten in almost monastic silence.
Pardon my ramblings. I guess what I’m trying to do is find Christmas. It’s not in the traditions that have faded into memories. I know the theological answer. It is the reality that the all-powerful, holy, triune God worked out a plan to forgive our sins through the Incarnation — becoming One with us — Immanuel. I imagine in those first few centuries after Christ’s ascension into heaven that celebrations of His birth were muted affairs, done in hiding, and perhaps not even on any particular day. Rather the entire scope of Jesus’ salvation from birth, through life, to death and resurrection was celebrated with each secret gathering of believers. Even today, I know there are parts of the world, China for instance (where 90% of our Christmas decorations are made) where families and churches gather clandestinely, fearful of discovery and arrest. I guess I’m not as alone as I thought.
So what is the heart of Christmas? The answer is obvious: Jesus Christ. Is He really honored by boisterous parties, groaning tables, flashy presents? He can be. But He can also be honored in the silence of a foggy night in the lonely heart of an old woman who longs to see Him face to face.
Kathy Kexel 