Christmas in the Details

a story by Chad Jones

Between cookie decorating contests, living-room-fort movie marathons and Christmas Pictionary, there is no shortage of holiday traditions in our house.  Some we’ve started and some we’ve carried on, and what I’ve found is often it’s the moments in-between where we find the most joy.

While I absolutely love Christmas, it also comes with seemingly endless to do lists.

My mother and sister work tirelessly through November to get shopping and all their wrapping done so they have time to relax as the holiday approaches. But as one thing is ticked off the list another is added, and if we’re not careful, the quiet moments give way to the more chaotic.

So every year I quietly refuse to wrap anything until after the kids are in bed on Christmas Eve.  Then I drag out the box of presents from the closet, throw a few logs on the fire and sit down with my wife Ashley.  My mother and sister migrate into their respective living room chairs and for the next hour, as we wrap, we remember.  I recount something funny Huck said earlier in the week that reminds Ashley of a distant memory she has from when Olivia was a baby.  That reminds mom of something Dad had done when I was a child, and away we go.  Over the years these stories seem to grow.  They get wilder and the laughs get bigger.  We relive these small moments that have made our life so full over the years. And in that joy we find the inspiration to be more present in those moments as they happen. To savor them. To remember all the small details so next year, as we wrap, we can experience them all over again.

Scripture: Luke 2:17-19

When they saw this, they reported what they had been told about this child.  Everyone who heard it was amazed at what the shepherds told them.  Mary committed these things to memory and considered them carefully.

Prayer

God of the big and the small, silence the noise and chaos this season, and elevate the soft, quiet moments.  Help us breathe in each moment, each memory in the making.  May these times stay close to our hearts.  Amen.