It was the “Candlelighting” video that broke me.

Since we’re not going to have a morning worship service this Sunday (our Christmas Eve service will be that evening at 6:00 pm), I put together an online “best of Live Oak Christmas” videos from the past few years. Just a little something to have on in the background while you’re wrapping presents. 🙂

So, I went through all of our old videos, including the ones from 2020.

Oh.

OH.

2020, you may recall, was the year when we couldn’t meet in person at all. We had no vaccines, and the experts still weren’t for sure about how covid was transmitted. So we did an entirely online Christmas eve service. Including our candlelight ritual — before the day arrived, members picked up candles from the church so they would have them for that portion of the service. And several of our families filmed themselves lighting their candles, and we made a video of that.

So there I am, sitting at my desk at the church, laughing and enjoying finding the old videos and then that one comes up. It’s beautiful. And I’m so grateful that we’re in a different place now. And it was so hard, that year. So very hard.

So THEN there I am, sitting at my desk at the church, with tears rolling down my face. Diane walked in with a question on another matter, to find me sniffling. She looked at me with concern. “I broke myself,” I explained.

Back a million years ago – okay, it was actually 2018, but that was before the pandemic, so I’m pretty sure my calculations are correct — I wrote this poem:

Christmas never comes by itself
It always brings along its companions of prior years
Hanging this ornament on the tree, the one from years ago
This one that was my mother’s,
That one the baby made in kindergarten, 30 years ago
We carefully nestle the Nutcracker among some ribbons
So you can’t see the place where it broke that one year
We always make that special cake that Nanna used to bake
But never turnips, because Papa was allergic, tho he’s been gone 6 years now
At Christmas, he is still here, we laugh telling the story for the thousandth time
When the candle wreath caught fire and he had to toss it outside in the snow
He moves through our gathering with the other family members long gone
Touching gently the Angel figurine great grandmother brought over from the old country.
Christmases past – so many, one every single year! – are layered one on top of the other, on top of the other. The years of joy, the years of sorrow, too.
Layers upon layers upon layers.
We say, enjoy this day, this Christmas will never come again.
But it will.
In the memories, the stories, the fragile ornaments and sturdy recipes
This Christmas will come again and again.
– 2018

But we also have those years that I think our brains try to excise from our history or at least gloss over. And yet, they are a part of our story, too. Our stories of survival. Our stories of getting through hard times. Joy and woe are woven fine, as William Blake wrote. I believe we are more whole when we can integrate those memories rather than set them aside.

I do hope you’ll take a look at “best of” service on Christmas Eve morning, or at a different time – it’ll go live at 10:00 am, but then will be available for viewing on demand. You’ll find some funny bits, some beautiful music, and maybe even some memories that have been tucked away, hidden from view.

It’s okay to break sometimes. As Carly Simon sings, there’s more room in a broken heart. The Ghosts of Christmas Past help us be more whole.

AND … there is something to be said for making new memories. I hope you can join us Christmas Eve night, at 6:00 pm, for our in-person candlelight Christmas Eve service. (It will also be streamed.) Dress however you’d like – we have some families who come in their finest holiday dress, while others (kids mostly, but you do you) come in their pajamas. Come for the familiar music, and perhaps also some new. Come for community. This is a resilient community that has survived and thrived even during some of the hardest days. And it is good to be together.