With my back to the hospital room window I am aware of the setting sun. It occurs to me that today is the shortest day of the year and I am looking forward to lengthening days filled with sunshine.  Sympathy has been expressed that we are in the hospital during the holidays, but we really hope that no one feels bad on our account. On the contrary, I feel that my Christmas this year will be one of my all-time favorites. (Besides, we do get to go home tomorrow.)

A couple weeks ago Mark was asked to speak in church. He spoke of the Christmas hymn, In The Bleak Midwinter as well the choice by Constantine to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on the 25th of December. There are a variety of theories regarding this choice, but I love the notion that he chose the darkest days of the year wherein the world around us is shrouded in death to celebrate the Light and Life of the world! 

Often, when I think of the birth of baby Jesus I marvel that God would condescend to come to earth as a helpless infant. What love He has for us – coming to earth to redeem mankind – something none of us can do for ourselves! This year I find myself focused on Light and Life. In fact, we put up our tree rather quickly this year before we left for Thanksgiving. I have never done this before, but perhaps something told me that I wouldn’t be coming home again for a couple weeks. It was great to have that to greet us when we returned from the hospital, but I was unsettled that it has only the manufacturer’s lights displayed. After hearing Mark speak the lack of light bothered me even more. Therefore, when Kimberly came home she helped me remove all of the ornaments and add another six strings of lights. I hope to add more next year.

For the first time in my life I now gaze at the Christmas tree and I actually feel the symbolism of the evergreen tree. This symbol of everlasting life – covered in lights which now bring to my mind our Lord and Savior, the Light and Life of the world! Would I be feeling this as deeply if, rather than sitting and contemplating, I was out and about being distracted by a myriad of festivities? Now, don’t get me wrong, I love festivities and think they are a very appropriate way to celebrate. However, this year I am grateful for quiet, reflective time.

I recognize two other Christmas celebrations that have been more reflective than festive. Both of them may have elicited sympathy from others, and yet here I am reflecting on them as wonderful.

1994 – we were so young…. fresh out of graduate school with two little boys and we were simply broke. We spent our meager Christmas budget on some slide film – I took the boys to the library and we checked out books on the nativity. I took photos of the illustrations and we put together a nativity slide program with music. A few weeks ago I heard this Carol of the Birds – It is a distinctive piece of music and hearing it brought back the joy I felt as we used to enjoy/share this slideshow over the next few years. I wonder where those slides and cassette tape have ended up? What I liked about this project is that we used pictures we had never before seen – and didn’t stop with the nativity. We found pictures to represent the life of Christ as well as His glorious second coming. It made the entire celebration make more sense – just who was this Christ child?

That year we also used our funds for the supplies to make a homemade “car rug” for the boys. One of our neighbors must have realized our plight because one night we heard our doorbell but the only thing on our porch was an envelope containing a twenty dollar bill. What a treasure it was to us – not just the money, but the sweet charity of the giver. We used it to purchase hot wheels for the boys to use on the car rug. This was a cherished Christmas.

How we love Christmas celebrations with friends! On some years our calendar would be completely filled as we either hosted or attended a variety of get-togethers 3-4 nights a week (plus school events) throughout the month of December. Then came 2010.

2010 – our first experience with chemotherapy. Greg’s hospitalizations did not miss a single holiday, not to mention the many other days/weeks of the seven months of treatment. Even when we were home we were physically and mentally worn out. We kept everything very low-key and it is a possibility that we never left the house for a single party?? Yet that year has a few precious memories. Christmas morning found us all at the hospital bright and early. Soon after the children came and crowded into Greg’s room, Santa arrived with a wagon full of gifts. Each sibling received 3 or 4 gifts with their name on them, each individually hand-picked. What fun! For myself, I had enjoyed time spent in the catacombs of the hospital with the child-life specialist as she helped me choose gifts from rooms filled with shelves of donated toys. I marveled at the generosity of so many who gave so much and never saw the joy on the faces of the children. Thank you!! I gained a new perspective on giving.

When we were discharged we had a belated Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. Two other moments surrounding Christmas are dear to me. Greg’s surgery was soon after our celebration and he was confined to a wheelchair. We set up a bed in the family room. It was April before he was upstairs again in his room – and was thrilled to be reunited with his Christmas gifts, still sitting out where he had put them four months earlier. The other memory is like a tribute to the difficulty and simplicity of those times. It was Valentines Day when I realized I should probably take down the Christmas tree. A month prior to this I had been nestled on the couch with my kids – Greg was in the hospital recovering from surgery with Mark and the rest of us were home, wrapped up together in blankets and watching movies all day. It was the only activity I could handle. I perfectly recall that my friend surprised us with a delicious taco dinner – living in Washington we were not yet acquainted with Cafe Rio, but these were copycat tacos and we loved them. We sat by the light of the Christmas tree and I almost had the energy to be embarrassed that our tree was still standing. A month later, when I finally took it down, I was not embarrassed. I was respectful of our family’s need to take things at a slower pace than that to which we were accustomed. Focus on that which is most needful.

That lesson has continued to come into play at any time when we find ourselves a bit overwhelmed. 

We love Christmas! We have loads of joyful, precious memories. Yet as I considered my new-found appreciation of LIGHT as part of the celebration, I wanted to record these three particular Christmas memories. They are experienced while in the midst of a myriad of “troubles” and yet now emerge as the most cherished. 

We love to know that Christ is aware of us, perhaps we should be more purposeful in our effort to be aware of Him. On every day of the year, where there is darkness we can invite Light. Light overcomes darkness.

Here at the hospital I don’t have access to all our photos – but I found these on this Caring Bridge blog I kept during Greg’s first bout with cancer in 2010-2011.

I also don’t have photos of our 1994 Christmas, but I did find this excerpt that I wrote in the yearly record we used to be good about keeping….

Merry Christmas!!