December 18, 2023
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Read Along:
Christmas Moments
by Beth Kelley
Although television and the rural culture she lived in threaded the Christian narrative through her days, Christmas dreams in her youth were largely about Santa Claus and the gifts she might receive. Mister Machine, a chemistry set, and one absolutely stellar year a pair of ice skates that liberated her from wearing bread bags on her shoes in order to slide around the pond and spin like Peggy Fleming. She had not even dreamed skates were an option.
The tree, cut from the woods, held ancient lights musty and dusty and twined like bittersweet. Only her mother was allowed to touch the lights. Her oldest sisters hung the fragile bulbs. And she hung the icicles. When all was done, she would lie under the tree on her back, staring through the weave of nature and technology in a wordless meditation of past, present, and future.
Holding her first baby, she understood the Christmas story in a whole new way. Not that she was a Madonna; not that her child was a savior. But the miracle of the small life, of his birth and of their deep connection, unfolded a love she had not dreamed before. The Christmas rituals laced through it.
As she raised her family, she found a church that did not preach sin and repentance, did not reinforce the inherent unworthiness of humankind. She ticked off in her mind how terrible, sexist, militant some of the lyrics were, but she sang them anyway, weighing the words against the joy of singing. She studied the traditional Bible stories with a cynical eye that cleared away untruths and cultural bias to reveal a foundation of kindness, compassion, and caring. Anything in opposition to that she pitched out.
She embraced the rituals as metaphors to help her embody her beliefs. She took on tasks for the same reason. She dreamed a better world, and though she did not believe in a God whom any human could understand or describe, she did believe in something. Call it higher power.
She was not a typical church lady. And none of this was easy.
And now when she dreams Christmas, she dreams it all at once: the ice skates, the revelation of love, her grandchildren, her friends, her family of origin, her ever-evolving family of design. She dreams of a celebration where they are all camped together in a shed with the animals, singing. There are stars, there is the strong scent of hay, of pine, and animals. They are waiting, but they are also celebrating the present moment. In her dream, she has a gift for each of them, and the gift is exactly right, perfectly selected. Something they didn’t even think to ask for.
“Look closely at the present you are constructing: it should look like the future you are dreaming.
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