Christmas Eve is and has always been a special day for me. I suppose everyone feels the same in some way. As a child it held this sort of magical feel to it...like a denseness in the air that you could almost breathe in. I've been a little disappointed in my adult years at how ordinary of a day Christmas Eve has become. My sister once told me that once I had children of my own it would become magical again. But no matter how dull it may feel for whatever reason, the memories of Christmases past keep it alive for me...atleast until those fantom children arrive at some point in my life (I do hope). Every year on Christmas Eve, my parents would load us kids up into the car and we would head to my grandparent's house. There would be food, music and general merriment. My mom or my aunt Judy would usually lead some sort of activity-slash-story for the young kids. And then there was the passing out of the presents. The announcement of this ritual always brought shouts of excitement from the kids. The little ones would jump up and run to the tree, and as my grandmother would direct them in which present went to whom, they delivered them like excited little elves buzzing with joy. And you couldn't open them up any old time you wished. Oh no. You had to go in procession of age. We started with the oldest children (also known as "The Four Girls", to which elitest group I belonged), and worked our way down. Then came the adults. With everyone looking on, you would open your gifts, announce who it was from, and then hold it up for everyone to see. You would either then look at the gift giver and give an acknowledgement of thanks, or go give a hug in gratitude. After all the gifts had been opened and songs had been sung, families began to disperse to their respective households for the night. We always tended to be the first to arrive and the last to leave (I attribute that to my mother, who is always setting up and cleaning up for every event I think I've ever been to in my whole life. Just goes to show how service oriented she is). On the ride home, my dad would always take the back roads and try to find streets with light-adorned houses for us to look at. I can remember watching out of the window, wondering if I might catch a glimps of the silhouette of Santa and his reindeer against the moonlit sky. When we arrived home, it was pretty quick to bed because by then it was usually far past our bedtime. My sister and I would go into our room that we shared and compare our gifts and talk about what Santa might bring in the morning. I can still feel the warm feeling of the evening as I drifted off to sleep.
We no longer hold our Smith family get-together on Christmas Eve, mainly because we all grew up. Grandchildren started to marry and have children of their own. We do still have our gathering every year, however, usually sometime on the weekend leading up to Christmas. Last night, as we all hung out together and ate food and sang songs, I had a flood of nostalgia wash over me. It was never about the presents. For me, it was always about the love that we all shared for each other as we celebrated the birth of the One who made it possible for us to be together forever. I will be forever grateful for the precious gift that is Jesus Christ, and that I have a family that still enjoys being together. Merry Christmas!
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