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By darwin Date: 2004 Dec 03 Comment on this Work [[2004.12.03.18.00.12359]] |
| I can't explain why. Maybe it was the years as a child, where every Christmas I would get a new dress to wear in front of the church. The years my mother made them from old fabric, because she couldn't afford to buy a dress from a department store. I would still parade proud in front of the congregation, my head held as high as an 8 year olds can be held with ribbons in it. My chin proud amidst the twinkling candle light of the church. There were boughs of evergreen dusting the church windows. My voice would sing twice as loud as the other children, loving to sing carols since I first discovered my passion for music. When it was time for my class to stand in front of the entire church, our recitation, "...and wrapped the babe in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, cause there was no room in the inn." Warmth would course through my body. This innate joy of Christmas. The brilliant colors of gold and crimson. Lush fabrics, velvets, satins and silk. Luxurious light bathing all from the glow of candles and the lights enmeshed on the trees. A beauty that other seasons do not seem to inhabit. Then there were those certain songs that you can only sing around Christmas "god rest ye merry gentlemen" and wait all year to sing again. Old English carols that seem to carry history itself in their words. I wait for these moments, and hope that Mother Nature is kind enough to allow it to snow for Christmas. What else is more beautiful then the fresh snow with the lights on bushes and porches to illuminate it from beneath? But it seems the older I get a bit of that joy seems to be lost. That youthful vigilance I once had, where I could wait until morning watching the cookies for Santa and the carrots for his reindeer, to make sure nobody else ate them. What do we wait for at Christmas now? We wait for the days off from work so we can rest our tired bodies. It's not so much a magical holiday now as it is a rest from life itself. A bit of that joy has found me again though, since I got married. I have found the joy of decorating a house for Christmas with the one I love. Planning for what lights or garland should we put outside? The joy of buying a special gift that only he will love, and I know that because I love him. Wistfulness still finds me though, when I see the families coming out of Church on Christmas Eve. Their cheeks glowing from the joy you can only truly know as a child, when innocence comes with the first winters snow. |