high school band at pier 39.

A group of kids played sweet Christmas melodies down by the wharf in San Francisco.  One little boy--the smallest one--played his pipe organ with a hammer and held his floppy booklet of songs with his left hand.  He was the only one in a Santa hat and he hammered his pipes with perfect precision.  Precious Christmas boy!

to applaud december.

A few days ago I overheard a lady say, "the month of December is awful because I want to be able to slow down to take in the meaning of the season, but it's so packed and busy that it always flies by too fast."  And while I can understand her sentiment, I think I'm going to disagree. 

My mother would say I am a glutton for over-commitment and December is most definitely the month of commitments. From Christmas parties to end-of-the-whatever parties, Christmas shopping to making sure you fit in every last tradition (cookie making, "White Christmas" viewing, stringing lights, sending cards, going to various performances, etc.)... there are definitely more than twenty-five things to do.  This means that on top of normal life responsibilities which, in every other month of the year take up every bit of your time each day, you are expected to fit in this whole laundry list of "Christmas things"--and more than one per day! It is indeed a jingle bell marathon.

I've been thinking this week, just about what that lady said.  And that's on top of how often I hear that we've "lost the spirit of Christmas" or that it's "gone commercial."   December-bashing is almost as common as political banter it seems.

But isn't it glorious the way that magic sort of sprinkles down over this month? Isn't there something beautifully comforting about the rich green garlands and ruby red Christmas bows that decorate Nordstrom starting days before Thanksgiving?  I have found myself recently wandering to places like Starbucks and walking around neighborhoods where folks string up gaudy lights and erect blow-up snow men because of what a joy the traditions are for me.

This weekend I ran in a race called the "Mistletoe"--Winston-Salem's half marathon of the last 25 years. I ran beside an older gentleman for a while who informed me that he had run this race every year since it had begun.  he was wearing green tights, stocking shorts and a red t-shirt. He had bells stuffed into his socks that jingled with each step and a ridiculous elf hat.  What fun! And today I bundled up to go to a free performance of Handel's Messiah put on by the local community purely in the spirit of celebration after attending a Young Life Christmas party where there were no less than twenty-seven different casseroles.

I think it comes down to this: Christmas is the season that we celebrate the good news--Jesus has come to be with us!  The words O come, Thou Day Spring, come and cheer our spirits by thine advent here. Disperse the gloomy clouds of night and death's dark shadows put to flight.  Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!  are indeed my portion and perhaps it is the reminder of Christmas--Christ's birth--every December that gives me the strength to make it through one more year.  As Madeleine L'Engle said in her poem Into the Darkest Hour, "the stable is our heart."

Some things are ridiculous, like the inflatable six-foot snow globe with the Nativity scene in the yard on the corner of Lindbergh and Country Club, but it is fun to laugh.  And I am thankful for Bing and Nat and their sweet Advent lullabies, for the peppermint coffee drinks and the Home Alone marathons on cheap TV because at the heart of the joy and merriment is the precious keeping of Jesus born in Bethlehem in a sheep pen.  Sweet sweet December, thank you for hosting my heart in this celebration season.

the corner where they lived.

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving we drove in toward Pittsburgh from Butler--Mark's home town.  We got as far as the city outskirts to a little place called Mount Lebanon.  Pittsburgh is nestled down in a valley where three rivers meet, the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers.  The hills that rise up, including the famed Mount Washington, surround the city as the porcelain walls of a bathtub. They are dotted with simple homes and nondescript structures--old mills and sheds of sorts.  Pittsburgh's history lies in the steel industry and the city people are hard working.  It is an aged and solemn city. 

The street winds around up Mount Lebanon and passes houses that grow by the block.  The oldest houses, found up on top of the hill, are structurally unique, built with mortar and stone and sharp angled roofs.  The yards are small--every house seems like a well postured gentry standing in his square foot guard post.

As we wound through the neighborhoods, I realized we would pass Mark's folks' first house.  They had met working at the city hospital--a nurse and a young doctor--and fallen in love in the courtly city.  Doc had grown up on Mount Lebanon and when he and Joyce were married, they decided to start back at his beginning.  We drove around corners and sucked in our breath as the Honda squeezed between a row of parked cars and a passing Lexus.  The houses were framed with red and white Christmas lights and in the early dark we passed heedless window people cooking dinner and picking toys up off of the ground. 

Doc pulled up in front of a house on a steep hill.  "This is it," he said, crouching down to look up out of the passenger window. "This is the house I grew up in."  We all looked and I was smiling, and nobody had anything to say.   We drove on down the block and made a few turns, pulling up again in front of another house, smaller, with the front door open and the light shining out onto the lawn.  

Joyce put her hand on Doc's shoulder and said,"there's our first house." Turning to her husband she said,"don't you just miss Mount Lebanon?" 

He chuckled and as he pulled away he glanced back out of the window and exclaimed, "those are my steps!"

"Oh yeah!  Mark, your father built those steps down from the porch to the back.  There weren't steps when we moved in."  She looked back at him and said, "That's your carpentry-- holds up a long time."  She sighed and watched out the window as we drove around down the hill.  

We ate dinner in a quaint restaurant in the neighborhood around the corner from where Joyce used to walk the girls when they were babies and she would wait for Doc to get home from work. "One time," she explained, "I had Lisa in the stroller and I tipped it and she fell right into the gutter.  And then Stef started screaming, 'Mommy! The baby!'  I had to tell her to hush because, of course, all of the rich Mount Lebanon mothers are walking through town and here I am, this young mother, throwing my child in a gutter."  She shook her head and laughed at the memory.  It was sweet to watch her delight in memories that poured forth so heedlessly.

Outside it was windy and cold, but inside it was cozy.  The restaurant had once been someone's home; our reserved table was in an upstairs bedroom of sorts, only the walls had been punched out.  We drank wine and laughed about stories that took place long before Mark and I could be found anywhere but God's ledger.  How thankful I was to put a hand on a place which, to me, was merely a place but to them was the backdrop of an era.