This year was far from the Christmas that my husband and I had hoped for. I caught a nasty cold 3 days before the season was to begin and spent the majority of the holiday vacation coughing, sniffling and unable to sleep through the nights. We were also forced to plan around a bit of an odd work schedule as my husband was still on night shift at the time and working through Christmas Eve. Our combined schedule made it impossible to get back to Colorado to celebrate with my family in the mountains this year and the hubby was sleeping during the day. Thus I spent most of a rainy, dreary, snowless Christmas Eve alone. For all of these reasons the usual magic of Christmas was nowhere to be found and I wasted half the day mourning its absence. What a perfectly uncatholic way to welcome the coming of Christ.
However, though my beloved Christmas magic was far away, all this unpleasantness was ultimately transformed into my very own Christmas miracle all thanks to a phone call with one of the best Catholics I know, my mom. I’ve told her this many times before but after the events of this Christmas Eve, it bears repeating. The world needs more moms. She listened to my holiday woes with Mary-like patience and then imparted the following (perhaps divinely inspired) advice.
- Bake something – Even in spite of feeling a bit under the weather, I was still perfectly able to buzz around my house a bit that day and make some kind of preparation for the coming of Christ. She sent me a breakfast casserole recipe which became our Christmas morning meal.
- Listen to Handel’s Messiah – Growing up, a local group would always spend a weekend traveling to several churches in the valley to perform George Frederic Handel’s famous oratorio and this provided a small taste of childhood. It’s also an incredibly reverent work entirely dedicated to the beauty and joy of the Christmas season. There’s some speculation that it was even divinely inspired as Handel completed the work in a short 2 weeks.
- Read the Gospel nativity passages – What better way to remember Christ’s humble beginnings than to return to the Gospel stories. It’s interesting to see the same language echoed across multiple Gospels, many of which make use of words like “behold” traditionally meant to announce royalty. Christ was not just a baby who became a prophet. He is our King.
- Light the Advent candles – Due to drastically different work schedules we didn’t have many opportunities this year to sit in prayer over our lit Advent wreath. However, Christmas Eve, the last day of the season, was a perfect time to remedy this situation. They remained lit as I read the Gospel recounts of the nativity.
All this my mom offered as means to LIVE LITURGICALLY! In spite of minor, or even major hardship, in our lives we are called to embrace the spirit of the season especially during one of the holiest seasons on the liturgical calendar. Though it did take some motherly nudging, I found immense peace and joy this Christmas Eve as I went about these activities, embracing an attitude of service, gratitude and quiet reflection. It was yet another Christmas in which things did not go according to plan but one in which I truly and happily drew closer to Christ.