Countdown to Christmas … Day 18

I told you earlier in the countdown about my mom reading to my sister and me from our Christmas book each night in December. 

When we started filling our home with children, I began collecting Christmas books. Each year I would pick a new nice book for our family. We were gifted others by relatives and friends. These eventually found a place near the tree in a basket and we would pull out from them and read each night. 

When they were older, we read through The Best Christmas Pageant Ever some years or other chapter books I collected. 

Somehow all these made their way upstairs through the lean years when there were no children to be read to. 

I loved seeing the basket resting near the tree and even as they were older, I would see, on occasion, a young adult child pick up one to look at. 

Then we began adding the next generation and how fun it was to share the stories with little ones again. 

But alas…these days, schedules are full of practices and games and this year we will not see them here in our home until Christmas Eve. I debated taking some with us each time to read but there is barely time to read the collection their mommy and daddy have started in their home. 

On Tuesday, we picked up all four after school. This is a rare treat these days as usually one or more has some extracurricular activity and we only bring a small band home with us. 

The kids were getting their snacks and pulling papers out and somewhere in the midst of it all Joel crossed a boundary with Caroline. 

I heard a whimper and saw a little blonde head resting on the table near Papi. The male contingent felt she was overreacting. They must have forgotten she was coming off the Recital Week Marathon and had a Christmas program in a few hours. 

She had reached her max. 

I whispered for her to come with me and we went up to her room. I saw two Christmas books on her bed and suggested we read. Pulling her blankets up around her she rested her head on my shoulder and we opened the first one. 

It happened to be the story of The Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado. In the front I recognized the handwriting of someone special to us. 

 Besides being our pastor’s wife and close family friend, she had been Rachel and Zach’s college teacher on Sundays and had gifted them the book when Graham was born. 

This touched an already tender place from my own long week of recovering from recital duty, an irritated trigger point in my upper back, the empty place that will be at our Christmas Eve this year with John staying in Austin, the boys who had not been gentle with their little sister, another child who is grieving a loss and too many irons in the fire as the clock ticks down to our family gathering. 

I am sure you have been there. 

As I read about the lamb who didn’t fit in, my voice got all choked up. The words started to become strained. 

My reading companion tilted her face up and those gray green eyes penetrated my own. She patted me and reassured me that the story was going to work out okay. 

I smiled as best I could and thanked her. I said I was sad for so many things but I was very glad to hear the fate of the crippled lamb would end well. 

We finished the story and yes, of course, things went splendidly for the lamb who got left behind only to be able to keep the Christ child warm in the stable. We then read another favorite story from her daddy about a kind little girl who wants to be an elf. 

I told Caroline she reminded me of that little girl, though I hope she doesn’t decide to trek to the North Pole to apply for the job. 

All in all, we probably read for about twenty minutes. Twenty minutes in a bustling and busy month that now rest in a special place in my heart. Reading Christmas stories as a child and to our children is one of the things I hold dear about the holidays. 

The heart of the tradition remains even if the way it happens changes. A sweet memory to add to all the others and I am so grateful. In my effort to comfort her, she comforted me and isn’t that the most beautiful part of Christmas? 

We want to give so much and then we are so blessed in return. It is in the quiet moments and the unexpected places where this season holds its magic. Like a baby born in a manger, it is God showing up in ways we had not planned, coming into our pain and bringing His peace.