Christmas lights

One of my favorite childhood Christmastime traditions was piling into the car and driving around town to look at Christmas lights and decorations. We drove slowly through the neighborhoods nearby, and always at least once through the village, where the old houses on Church Street had candles in every window and wreaths on every door. And Main Street was always lit with the most beautifully draped white lights, running through the trees and framing the street like a picture.

But even more than the outside decorations, I loved our Christmas tree. Every year we trudged through a nearby farm to choose just the right one. We'd argue and holler and leave hats and gloves behind so we could come back to this tree or that one, because it was the BEST one. Finally Dad would flop on the ground and saw away, and by late that evening we'd have a stately evergreen in the corner by the fireplace.

We weren't a matchy-matchy kind of family... rather than garlands and bows, we decorated out tree with memories. Every ornament had a story. The glass ballerina was from my second year of dancing, and I always hung it just right, surrounded with pink Christmas lights to make it glow. The Minnie Mouse and Pluto ornaments went near the bottom of the tree, so we could pull the strings and watch them click their heels. Baby's first Christmas, matchbox car ornaments, a string of Phantom of the Opera scenes (relics of my obsessed years)... every year Mom gave us a new ornament to commemorate something special. It was a tree chock full of life. And Angie the Angel sat on top, candles glowing in her hands, smiling peace over it all.

I remember one night, a night after a difficult day. I might have been ten years old. It was my last Christmas of family peace, but I didn't know that yet. I couldn't sleep and in the middle of the night I crept down the hall and into the living room, plugging in the Chrismas lights and snuggling with a blanket in Dad's big gray recliner. I gazed at the tree and thought about the memories, then the reflection of the lights on the aquarium caught my eye. I watched the fish swim around, watched the lights reflect off of the glass and water, and all of my agitation started to fade. I felt not peaceful, nor happy, but I was no longer pensive. It was... quiet. Still. At rest.

I sat there for a very long time, rocking gently, gazing at the lights. The creak of footsteps in the hall intruded into the moment, and I was momentarily angry. My dad came in, surprised to see me, and made me move out of his chair. But then he gave me a hug and pulled me into his lap, made sure I was okay, wrapped us both in my afghan, and gazed at the lights with me. I rested my head against his chest and listened to his heart beating. We whispered a little, and were still, and we just looked and looked at the lights.



Many years later, the ornaments decorate a different tree at a different house. My dad's recliner is kind of crusty now, and there hasn't been a real Christmas tree in that room in over a decade. But in the intervening years both my dad and I have come to know Christ, and now we share a different kind of peace at Christmas.

Someone once told me that even before we know who he is, Christ woos us. He reveals himself before we know that it's him, kindling both a desire for and understanding of his nature: peace, joy, majesty, love. Can you see it in your own life?

That night with those Christmas lights was a night that God met me, a scrawny, agitated ten-year-old, in the suburbs of Rochester, NY. He was there that night, and I didn't even know it. But looking back, I know it was him. A little taste of peace, a little taste of love. A moment I never want to forget.


Oh, how he loves us.