Love Came Down at Christmas
Love Came Down
20131222 Advent 4A Sunday, Dec 22, 2013. Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, FL. The Rev. Tom Weller
“Love came down at Christmas” and Christmas is different in every family, with different memories every year. You may want to remember some of yours while I share some of mine. Please be seated.
As a boy, the happiest two days of my year at Cove School were the first day of summer vacation, and the first day of Christmas vacation, long days of freedom spreading out before me. The two worst days were the last day of summer vacation, and Christmas Eve.
The last day of summer vacation, obviously. But Christmas Eve -- I’ll come back to that!
When I was a boy the first sign of Christmas was around Thanksgiving when the Sears Roebuck Catalog arrived and I’d pour through it endlessly, lusting over the toy section and picking out what I’d include in my letter to Santa.
As Christmas came near, our home filled with the aroma of candy. My mother made fudge, and pecan roll, and date roll, and divinity, and what we called English toffee, buttery, crunchy toffee, slightly salty, with chocolate on top. I was the “mixer,” stirred candy for hours and got to “lick the spoon” and “lick the bowl.” And with a sweet tooth I was always the main candy consumer.
And fruitcake. We made fruitcake. The last Sunday before Advent was called “stir up Sunday” for stirring up fruit cake batter because of the Collect for the Day -- “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by thee be plenteously rewarded” -- and an old custom was to go home after church that day to stir up the batter and put fruit cakes in the oven.
We never heard of buying a Christmas tree, that would have been shameful. Sunday afternoon before Christmas we put a hatchet, axe and saw in the car trunk and headed off on our annual Christmas tree hunt in the woods of Bay County, wandering trails and circling pine trees until we finally settled on a tree my sister liked. By the time we’d been looking a couple of hours, we were less picky and it didn’t matter that it was flat and skimpy on one side, because that side would go against the wall. We cut it down, stuffed it in the car trunk and tied the trunk lid down, brought it home, built a stand, wired the tree to the stand to keep it from toppling over, took it inside, brought out the decorations and spotted beloved old favorites from years past; sorted through strings of lights trying to get some that would work. In those days, if one bulb went out, the whole string went out and you had to test every bulb to find the bad ones. Bits of tinsel that my sister liked to hang on the branches one by one, I preferred to stand back and throw a clump of tinsel at the tree and be done with it. Wrap presents in private, put them under the tree, and wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Came Christmas Eve, “worst day of the year” because it stretched out for an eternity of second after second, minute after minute, me actually glancing up to see if the sun was standing still to torment me. Christmas Eve: a day I thought would never end, hours and hours of suffering until I could go to bed and to sleep to put myself out of my misery until predawn waking on Christmas morning.
When I was thirteen my father started taking me to the midnight Christmas Eve service at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, which added new dimension, meaning and memories to Christmas, such that from that night on, the Christmas Eve service has been everything that Christmas is to me..
Christmas morning, my brother, sister and I gathered at the bottom of the stairs, forbidden even to peek into the living room where the Christmas tree was, we waited and waited and waited, once my father muttered loud enough to make sure we overheard him say, “I wonder why Santa Claus didn’t come,” us looking horrified at each other, apprehension building until mama said “OK, you can come in.” Anxiety was high. Would Santa have come? What would be there, if anything? And would there be anything for me, nevermind anything I had asked for, usually a cap gun or BB gun or some kind of gun, and a chemistry set.
I don’t remember putting out cookies and milk on the fireplace hearth for Santa until my sister came up with the idea because one of her friends did that, but once we started, the next morning the cookies were gone and the milk glass empty: for any doubters, this was absolute irrefutable proof that Santa had come. Milk drunk, cookies gone.
Gift opening was a frenzy for Gina and Walt, but I opened mine slowly to stretch it out, much to their annoyance when they were done and I was still opening presents, but it was never to annoy them, only to make it last.
One scary Christmas morning we came into the living room to find Santa’s hat lying in the edge of the fireplace. Our father said, “I almost got him this time, grabbed his hat as he escaped up the chimney,” which caused me enormous consternation and we were sure Santa would never come again, until mama admitted she had made the Santa hat for our father’s prank, a dirty Irish trick, worse than throwing the overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s chowder.
After opening presents we had breakfast and you could smell turkey roasting and the oyster dressing. When Christmas dinner was over, we loaded up the car, dropped by Mom and Pop’s house in St. Andrews to exchange hugs and gifts with those grandparents, then headed off to Pensacola.
Arriving at the house in East Hill where my mother grew up, our grandparents and my mother’s brothers and sisters, their wives and husbands and all our cousins were there waiting for us full of excitement and love. In the living room of Mamoo and Daddy Walt’s house another Christmas tree was loaded with gifts for us. Two different Christmases over the years a bicycle for me. New roller skates, underwear, shirts and socks, every kid has underwear and socks in his letter to Santa. My grandfather owned a pawnshop, so you might get fishing gear or something electric like a portable radio.
We had dirt roads and no sidewalks in Panama City, but they had sidewalks in Pensacola, and the day after Christmas would be skating around the block with cousins who taught me to skate, stopping often to tighten with a skate key the clamp holding the skates to the shoes. And hours on end riding bicycles around the block if for no other reason than my grandmother would shout “Get out of the house.”
About sunset we’d load up the 1942 Chevrolet that was our car during World War II and head home for Panama City. Sometimes I slept in the back seat, but usually I rode in the front seat and listened to my parents talk about the visit and about how it was when they were teenagers together in Pensacola only a few year earlier. I’d watch the cars on the road, for Pierce Arrows and Packards with side-mount spare tires and a trunk rack on the back.
During World War Two, the top half of car headlights had to be painted over to keep beams low so as not throw up light that could be seen from German submarines offshore. I recall once seeing the glow of fire over the horizon, and later hearing that a U-boat had torpedoed a ship off the coast. The night ride home from Pensacola to Panama City along the Gulf of Mexico was scary at night because of rumors about Germans from U-boats coming ashore.
Arriving home late night, the three of us were sound asleep and our father carried us in. It was always a surprise to wake in my own bed the next morning.
Over the next few days the living room floor would become covered with pine needles, and it was time to start taking down the Christmas tree and packing things away, the final sign Christmas was over.
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In all of that, my memories are of love in our family at Christmas. Anticipation, excitement, delicious things to eat, memories of Christmas with loved ones who are gone. It’s all different now, changes with every generation, but stays the same, a season to tuck memories away for years later when you’ll need them. As need them you will.
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My prayer this morning is at Christmas may the Holy Spirit fill you with peace in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, not only in ancient time to Bethlehem, but especially in his promise of coming again. Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen!
My aunt Evalyn, whom we called E.G., used to give talks for the folks at the retirement home where she lived about what she called our "Treasure Chest of Memories." My blog post this morning is my chat-not-sermon from the pulpit yesterday, printed because so many people afterward, and at the delightful vestry and staff party at Lori and Steve Bates' home last evening, shared childhood Christmas memories with me and said they'd remembered things they hadn't thought of in years. My idea of the chat was exactly that: regardless of what might be going on in life this year, to remember wonderful things.
Tom Weller