CHRISTMAS IS FILLED WITH SPECIAL MOMENTS. The “moment” I am referring to is different for each of us. It might be bundling up to go sing Christmas carols or enjoying a special Christmas-time meal with family and friends. It might a night of adrenaline rush shopping at the local mega-mall or a trip to Crest Ranch to select the perfect Christmas tree. Whatever that “moment” is it is just not Christmas without it.
My Christmas moment comes on Christmas Eve, and I guess you could say it is a culmination of moments. It begins with a family meal of soup in bread bowls followed by the final preparations for the Christmas Eve service, the filling of Communion cups and the lighting of scores of candles. It finds its focal point in the re-telling of the Christmas event and the gathering of fellow-worshippers around the Lord’s Table. It is punctuated by a family car ride through the Christmas-lit houses in Scotts Valley and finds its finale in the hanging of Christmas stockings and making sure all are tucked into bed with sugarplum dreams in their heads. But…my most special moment is yet to come.
My true Christmas moment comes late in the evening, when all is quite. The woodstove is radiating its warmth and the lights on the Christmas tree cast a hazy glow throughout the room. All is quite. All is still. All is peaceful. It is the moment I wait for, dare I say that I long for, in each Christmas season. It is the moment between moments. It signifies the end to the pre-Christmas rush, and stands as a quite sentinel awaiting the unpackaged joy of Christmas morning. It is the peace between pieces. It is a moment that reminds of the first Advent night. The moment the Child was born, and the angels declared “Peace.”