X comes and dawns
White, no, but Right. Chilly -- about 46F on my back porch -- wind in the high pines down front as I walk to the end of the path to get Linda’s PCNH. Light already, Christmas has come and dawned because of going to bed after the late service last night. It’s all good, Life Is Good: for several years after moving home from Apalachicola, I felt in my heart that “Christmas doesn’t happen anywhere but Trinity Church” but it comes and dawns where love abides.
PCNH front page has a heading “Christmas Memories.” Too many and dear to stumble through without wanting to go there, to each one. The human mind allows that, and in sixty or a hundred seconds just now I’ve been back to a dozen of the best and worst.
From a ship off Vietnam, talking with family in San Diego over a goofy telephone where every sentence had to end with “over” so the operator could switch. You had five minutes so every crew member could get a turn.
From a ship off Vietnam, talking with family in San Diego over a goofy telephone where every sentence had to end with “over” so the operator could switch. You had five minutes so every crew member could get a turn.
Tiny beloved climbing into the doll crib Santa brought and squealing, “Mom! Lookit her!” White that year, cold in Ohio. First night it snowed we went outside where the entire neighborhood was enjoying the snow, and I pulled her on the sled.
Huddled with brother and sister a bundle of impatience on the bottom step while mama and daddy made final adjustments, or whatever it was they did to delay and intensify our agony before saying okay, you can come out now.
Driving away from 25 inches of snow in WashDC as I wondered what life would bring.
Getting out of the car at 1317 in Pensacola as all the aunts, uncles and cousins pour out of the house with hugs and making me feel so loved as if we were the only people in the world.
Driving away from 25 inches of snow in WashDC as I wondered what life would bring.
Getting out of the car at 1317 in Pensacola as all the aunts, uncles and cousins pour out of the house with hugs and making me feel so loved as if we were the only people in the world.
Tiny artificial Christmas tree with bubbly lights in my hospital room at Adams Hospital before family arrived. 1947. My main gift that year, a four-inch long abdomen scar from appendectomy. Hey, XMAS creates its own memories.
Three beautiful beloveds arriving for the rowdiest Christmas Eve service in the universe, and hearing that they may be four, ὁ ἀναγινώσκων νοείτω, then following a stream of angels and lambs down the aisle as a happy church stands and belts out “O come, all ye faithful.”
As Linda gets two into their PJs, slipping out and ringing tiny bells outside their bedroom window and hearing one scream, “I hear Santa.”
Negotiating icy snow-covered roads to get to St. Luke’s because of the incense and bells, then slipping and sliding back to Mount Calvary where love was.
Scroll through your own.
TW Xmas in +Time