CONTENTS

• Just Visiting
• Hope Realized by Mikal Frazier
• Christmas, 1944 by Norman Bales

To me the biggest plus of the Christmas season is the opportunity to strengthen families, but sometimes we come to the season with expectations and assumptions that hinder family growth. Mikal addresses that subject in today's feature article.

Then I want to share a family memory with you, one that is most important to me, one that continues to remind me of the special nature of family solidarity even though it took place more than fifty years ago.

Norman

"The stockings were hung by the chimney with care in hopes that Saint Nicholas soon would be there." Not only do we expect that Saint Nick will make his long-awaited visit, but the dinner will satisfy the hardest to please, Uncle Charles will have metamorphosed from the critical Scrooge to a caring and devoted benefactor, Aunt Lilly and Uncle Joe will not continue their annual resurrection of the hatchet, and hope for the rebirth of the family spirit reigns.

In Celia Falicov's Family Transitions Christmas and its anticipation are referred to as a psychological pregnancy which begins in October when we are warned there are only 90 shopping days left. The authors say, "The nest is symbolically refeathered and special food prepared for the arrival of the new symbolic baby," the long awaited expectation of family completing itself,-- wholly protecting, loving, and nurturing.

Other comments in Falicov's book remind the reader that joy does occur on the festive occasion, yet tinged with an edge of sadness, or "a feeling of something lost or missed." The authors call it a "desperate feeling that there may not be enough new hope." Somehow we may leave the gathering, still empty, our expectations unrealized. These writers conclude, "And always, at the end there is the loneliness. The warmth of renewed closeness is replaced by the pain of distance or indifference."

What these authors describe smacks of the pain that we each experience everyday. Christian counselor Larry Crabb says we were all created to live in a perfect world with perfect relationships with the Father and perfect relationships with one another. But that reality was lost in the garden. It will never exist here, not even on a snow- blanketed day in December.

When I sense people looking for that wholeness, I am reminded of John 7 when the Jews were celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles. There with Jesus in their midst they were aching for the same balm for their hearts. Historians tell us that an uncommanded ceremony had become customary on the last day of the Feast. The priest would take a golden vial and fill it with water from the fount of Siloam. With much celebration the vial was carried through the gate of the temple and the water mixed with wine and then poured on the sacrifice on the altar. It is believed that this custom began from an improper understanding of Isaiah 12:3, "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation." The originators of the ritual were searching for that promised wholeness.

Jesus proclaims to the people that He is the only answer for their thirst and ours. And then He promises the Comforter, our complete source of protection, nurture, and care. And if we will allow Him, we can have a holiday of "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control," Galatians 5:22.

I suggest that we approach the holiday with the perspective of Luke 6, giving love, giving encouragement, not looking for anything in return. Then we will be "sons of the Most High." When we are filled with the Spirit, He enables us to do just that. If we are filled with Him, what emptiness could there be. Again we are reminded that nothing of this world can truly satisfy. If we will remember to look to the cross, remembering that everyone around that holiday feast can be made whole at the cross, then as our hearts overflow with gratitude, we will experience His unspeakable joy.

It's hard for me to believe that one of my most cherished memories of Christmas took place more than fifty years ago. The year was 1944. World War II was winding down, although we did not know that one of the most decisive battles of the war - the Battle of the Bulge - was taking place even as we anticipated Christmas. Nor did we know that my father's kid brother was struggling to survive in the snow and sub-zero temperatures of the Ardennes Forest.

Christmas trees were a little hard to come by for poor folks in West Texas, but Daddy trudged along the creek banks until he found a salt cedar tree about 2 feet high. We decorated it with some old faded red and green ropes that Mama saved from year to year, with popcorn balls and lots of icicles, which we cut out from tinfoil we had saved all year long. Lights? Are you kidding, we didn't even have electricity.

We were sharecroppers and the harvest had not been all that great, but Daddy had a chance to work for our landlord around Christmas time to make a little money. He put in about twelve hours on Christmas Eve and came home to fulfill his promise to take us Christmas shopping. I was bursting with anticipationg when I saw the lights of our old '36 Ford pickup illuminate the road. In a few minutes, we would be heading the Abilene and there we would take care of our Christmas shopping.

We had a small problem. Daddy never saw his boss all day long and consequently, he didn't collect his wages. His wallet was flatter than a Kleenex. But he said, "Don't worry, we'll take eggs to town and sell them." Once we got to town we discovered that many of the stores had closed early on Christmas Eve. Finally we walked into a little hole-in-the-wall grocery store and the proprietor said that he was sorry. Our faces sagged as we started out of the store, but just then his eye caught the sight of my father lugging a two gallon galvanized bucket filled with eggs. He said, "Man, I didn't know you wanted to sell eggs; I thought you wanted to buy eggs. I don't have an egg in the store." He paid us a premium and we did our Christmas shopping.

In our family, you didn't expect some big ticket item like a Schwinn bicycle or a Lionel Train on Christmas morning. War rationing greatly reduced the availability of toys. Pictures were published in the Christmas catalogue, but the words "not available" were stamped across most of the pictures. Besides that, economics reduced the potential selection even farther. I think I found a plastic gun and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, under the Christmas tree. I must have read the book a dozen times. In all my life I have never appreciated a Christmas like that one fifty years ago. It reminds me of the truly important lessons of the season - the spirit of sacrifice, the importance of family togetherness and the priority of faith.

NEXT WEEK: "The Road We Have Travelled"