I’ll admit it—I love the over-the-top-ness of Christmas. I love finding—or even better, making—the perfect gifts for family, friends and coworkers. I enjoy watching cheesy holiday movies on the Hallmark channel as I wrap presents in shimmering paper, ribbons and homemade gift tags. I love seeing the light displays in my neighborhood as we take our dogs for bundled-up walks. (To be clear, it is my husband and I who are bundled up. Our doggos refuse to wear coats or boots.) I enjoy reading and rereading the Christmas story as I put out our own nativity scene. And I love sitting in my house with all the lights off except the Christmas tree and garlands lined with white twinkle lights and daydream about others who are doing the same.
But this Christmas is a little different. As each day of the holiday season passes, I am more acutely aware that this sacred holiday will be spent without family or friends filling our home. Gifts will be opened over Zoom; church services will be watched on YouTube; festive meals will be eaten alone. Even the lights seem to be twinkling a little less this year. (Two strands of lights in our house refuse to stay lit, despite our best efforts!) In our house, the joy of the season will be muted without the exuberance of beloved nieces bouncing around the tree.
Burton Hillis says, “The best of all gifs around any Christmas tree is the presence of a happy family, all wrapped up in each other.” And unfortunately, that is the gift that will be missing from our Christmas celebration this year.
So I’m looking for light wherever I can find it. I’m seeing the glow in the rowdy playfulness of my beloved dogs. The light is shining through my husband’s laughter when something truly funny makes his whole body shake. I’m finding the light in the faces of my extended family—even if it is filtered through a computer screen. And I’m seeing the light in a whole community coming together by staying apart—doing the hard work of social distancing for the good of the whole.
“As we raise lights on Christmas Eve, let them be an invitation to expand our Spirits and join with other lights to illuminate a world that is tormented by the shadows of fear and despair. May those of us who seek to follow the way of Jesus keep our eyes opened wide to the wondrous ways that God’s light shines through the sacred fires coming from our neighbors’ Spiritual homes.
This Advent, this Christmas, look up! Look around. Look just down the street, at how our Jewish neighbors are lighting candles too, in observance of Hanukkah, our Hindu neighbors are lighting the Diwali candles, and our Muslim neighbors have lights up to celebrate Eid. Our Pagan friends are celebrating the returning of the light with Solstice, and our Humanist friends raise the light of reason.”
—Paul Raushenbush, Interfaith Youth Core
Where are you finding the light this holiday season? Whose light is shining for and in you? How can you be the light for someone else?
—Andi Lewis, Prairiewoods marketing coordinator