December 1st...

It's the first of December and here are a few first thoughts as we start the season in earnest:

 

The day started out... with skies all pearly gray, Miss Kitty curled in a ball beside me, and me savoring a cup of freshly brewed coffee and toasted fruit bread topped with cheddar cheese.

The banner at the top... is one of my favorite pictures of Christmas. It's the record album cover of our family's first Christmas album (back from the early sixties). As a young child, I loved looking at that picture and daydreaming as I listened to the singers warble tunes and words of old carols not yet familiar. (Postscript: If the banner is no longer there, click here for a look.

At Christmas, I like to... attend at least one concert where I can hear some of the beautiful carols and music of the season. Sometimes it's Handel's Messiah or Bach's Christmas Oratorio, and sometimes it's a community concert.

My favourite character in the Nativity story is... Mary. I have often marveled at her great courage to say to the angel, Gabriel, after he'd told her she would become the mother of Jesus, "Be it unto me according to your word." Such trust and, as I say, courage.

One favourite Christmas memory... It's just days before Christmas; the air outside is frostier than an A&W Root Beer mug, and inside the welcome breath of warm air rises from the old coal furnace.

Mom is making supper in the kitchen. Otherwise it's quiet in our little farmhouse and, for the moment, this little girl is sitting perfectly content in the peaceful ambiance of our front room. Feeling safe and cozy, the world looks beautiful from where I sit in the very center of the couch -- gazing at the ribbons of tinsel shimmering in the glow of a single strand of round sugar-glass tree lights.

In this contemplative mood... I think about the pictures I've been studying on holiday greeting cards -- artists' renditions of little towns of Bethlehem with midnight skies and light streaming from tiny earthen windows. I muse about the shepherds who were the first to hear angels heralding good tidings. And, of course, I wonder about the Baby Jesus and envision him asleep in a manger where cows and sheep eat.

It turns out that all these years later, I still love to sit perfectly still in the cozy darkness of night with just those little tree lights twinkling... ponderin', dreamin', and delightin' in all the wonder of this time of year.

 

Let the countdown begin in earnest...