This morning I would like to tell you a story of how I discovered the true spirit and deep meaning of the Christmas season.
As a boy, growing up during the 1950s and 60s in the Deep South, I always enjoyed and looked forward to the coming of Christmas time. Even though my parents struggled financially, my Mom and Dad would save a little bit from each paycheck all year long so that they could give us three boys a wonderful experience.
They always made sure that we had a beautiful real pine tree put up early in December, with all the decorations and a shining angel on top. with piles of brightly wrapped gifts under it.
My mother would shop for the biggest, nicest turkey that she could find with all the trimmings. I can still remember her singing in the kitchen, as she spent days before the big day cooking and baking a special feast of a Christmas dinner for the family.
For all of us, Christmas was a journey of ever building anticipation and excitement that lasted from the day we put up our tree, all month until the blessed arrival of Christmas morning. We three boys were allowed to pick up the packages with our names on them and speculate on what they might contain.
My parents, and Santa Claus, had thought all year about the perfect gifts for each of us, so that when Christmas finally came, each gift was far better than even our wildest dreams. There were no cheap plastic or glitzy gifts. Each gift was a thoughtful fulfillment of something we needed to grow at each stage of life.
I see clearly now that the big Erector Set and Lincoln Logs set that I got one Christmas, spurred me to learn how to build and design things. As we grew up, my parents gave us gifts that opened the greater world for us.
When I was interested in science, they gave me a real telescope for studying the craters of the moon and later a real microscope set. They gave each of us big red wagons and real metal toy trucks, tractors and airplanes when we were young, and Red Ryder BB guns and 3 speed Schwinn bicycles when we were older.
This gave us the lesson that it is good to dream and have our dreams fulfilled. Looking back, I can see clearly that my parents enjoyed seeing our surprise and pleasure of receiving our gifts even more than we did.
Before Christmas, my parents gave each of us boys a few dollars, took us to the Five and Dime store, and allowed us to take our time finding our own secret gifts for each other. At home, my Mom would provide wrapping paper and tape so that we could wrap our carefully selected presents ourselves and place them among the pile under our tree.
This gave us the sweet experience of thinking about what others would like and enjoying see their pleasure when they opened our offerings on Christmas morning. This gave us a lesson in learning to give and share and care for each other.
What I did not realize until much later, when I became a father myself, was the remarkable transformation that happened to my Dad each year.
For the rest of the year, my dad was a strict disciplinarian who was the swift and sure dispenser of punishment for any infractions of the family rules or bad behavior by us boys. When we did something wrong or raucous while my Dad was at work, my Mom would give us time outs in a corner to think about it, but would invariably say “Just wait til your Dad gets home from work and hears about this!”
My Dad had a temper, and so we would spend the rest of the day in fearful anticipation of what would happen when he came home. Suffice it to say, my Dad, like many generations of fathers in our family before him, believed wholeheartedly in the old adage “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” No amount of boyish pleading, crying or explaining would cause him to spare the punishment that he believed must be dispensed.
Of course, we loved both parents, but for us, my Mom was the sweet angel of mercy, whereas my Dad was the feared dispenser of wrathful retribution.
But every year, as the Christmas season advanced day by day, my Dad would go through a gradual and amazing transformation.
He would become a completely different person as his stern demeanor disappeared and be replaced with genuine softness and caring. My dad would tell jokes and his laughter filled our house. He would even often say “You know, son, I am very proud of you and I love you with all my heart.”
Even though my Dad’s job of being a State Park Ranger was very demanding and stressful, he would make sure he got home early enough to spend time with us boys, playing ball or going for walks or just sitting with us to ask about our days at school. Gone was the stressed and strict man whose voice could be like lightning and thunder, who would punish us verbally and physically in ways that crushed our boyish spirits.
He became tender, gentle, loving and grateful for his family. The man he was the rest of the year was gone. I still remember the absolute delight of sitting in his lap, hugging him and being told I was a good boy or our family sitting around the dinner table as he told us stories of his own boyhood Christmases.
I can see clearly now that this transformation was brought about by the irresistible influence of the Christmas spirit, which is a real force of love and light that grows stronger, brighter and more pervasive as each day goes by.
My own Dad, who was a tough guy the rest of the year, was touched by it so much that his true nature came out and created such a space of love in our family that all of us had a transcendental experience which is so sweet in memory.
In all the years of my life since, my understanding and experience of the power of the Christmas Spirit to touch and transform each of us into the highest expressions of our true selves has grown deeper and clearer.
Because of the blessings of my boyhood Christmases, I always knew that the season is a precious opportunity that comes once a year to help us learn to love each other and the world in an unconditional and pure way.
But there are more amazing and abundant blessings which become available to each of us during this season as the Christmas Spirit grows stronger and brighter on Earth, which I will share about in the next postings
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Thank you Sue for your sweet insightful comments! You are the very first to comment on our very first post…we uploaded this post on 12/22/22 at 2:22 after so many obstacles and difficulties that made it seem like we would never be able to launch out into the world. What an amazing, unexpected rush of ecstatic energy when our post went live…it was almost as powerful as being at the birth of my children!
It was the same with me…my childhood days were spent in beautiful places, yet were extremely rough and dramatic emotionally…so much so that I am still healing more than 50 years later. But all my Christmases shine with love and grandeur in memory!
Oh, and congrats on pressing send on your first post!!! 💟