The First Before Christmas

 

       Some of the best things at Christmas are traditions. Especially those which have passed down from one generation to the next. Our family has several. One is the yule log, pictured above, which my great aunt used to make for my mother and her family when she was a child. Now my mother makes it for us. Another is our Baklava, complete with a secret ingredient which we don't share outside the family(seriously...if you ask us for the recipe we will exclude that ingredient). I love this part, the passing down from the older to the younger, the transferring of secrets almost like an ancient tryst. 

        Things like these are what make Christmas what it is for me: the excitement of advent, the beauty of the tree and all the decorations(the only time of year when it is socially correct to have a real live tree in one's house), and the joy of the day itself when I get to feeling as though all the world stands still for just one day.

        Usually around Christmas time there is so much good music to hear and to participate in making, there are children around who's anticipation of the day has them running circles in the kitchen, there are memories spilled regarding past Christmas events which bring tears of laughter to everyone who shares the memory. 

       This, my friends, is the beauty of a ritual. This is why we all do the same things come December each year and why I love it every time. We do not follow traditions or do things the same way in order to hang on to the past, or to cling to some flawed ideal of perfection. Instead, a ritual properly performed brings together the best of the past, present, and future, and for one moment, all three become the same thing. We cannot hang on to it forever in this life, nor ought we to try. The beauty of a ritual which is also its hidden barb is that it must necessarily come to an end and the clock must resume its rhythmic ticking as before. The ages must march on, and certain things must take place which will end and never take place again, but one thing remains, the ritual itself, and when the year rolls around to that sacred time once more, the clock stands still and all the Christmases that we thought were lost, all the Christmases which we have yet to experience roll into the present and join hands.

        Scrooge had the right idea at the end of "A Christmas Carol" when he proclaimed that he would keep the Christmases of past, present, and future all alive within him. In a sense they are all ghosts which vanish as soon as the witching hour is past, but oh, so real when the time is at hand. This is the joy of Christmas, and the Christmas I wish to all of you. Let it never become anything less than a sacred event, something holy, something mysterious, something transcendent. 

       And so I close out this tradition of mine, for close it I must, with John Rutter's beautiful Christmas blessing, "I Wish You Christmas."

      This carol magnificently encapsulates the awe, the wonder, the joy, the mystery that is Christmas.