Christmas Memories

 When I was five, I believed in Santa. I know because I woke up on my fifth birthday thinking something magical had happened. As I walked into the kitchen of our trailer, my mom was up making breakfast, but apparently she didn’t see the sparkling aura around me that I inhaled at every breath, so I had to tell her. “MOM!” I said, quite in awe of the moment. “I’m FIVE!”

She didn’t realize how important that was, but I did. I must have been at least a foot taller than I was the day before, back when I was four. Our family was set to visit Santa’s Village, an attraction somewhere in California, but hey, I was five so I didn’t keep track of where it was. I only knew that I would see Santa and his elves that day, because of course his village was somewhere close to home and they were hard at work on the presents in October.

Occasionally I would also look hard at a total stranger because I thought they might be Santa incognito, but then I also thought a few strangers might be one of the Beatles.

I couldn’t have been more than eight before I discovered the truth about the man in the red costume. My parents’ ruse involved getting us kids out of the house on Christmas Eve by luring us into the car to “go look at Christmas lights.” Then one of them would watch us in the car and the other would remember that they’d “forgotten something” and go back into the house to get it, while what they were REALLY doing was putting presents under the tree. After the drive around town, they would come back to the house, and lo and behold! Santa would have already been there! Our custom was to tear into the presents immediately and impolitely.

But then one year, I caught my parents doing the positioning of the gifts, figured it out, and was very upset at the deceit. They begged me at that time to not tell my brother and sister, but to just try to go along with the fun. I did my best to comply.

But I never forgot that I had been lied to, so years later, when we had our own kids, we decided not to engage in that same deception. Once Lisa got in trouble for telling neighborhood kids there was no Santa Claus. And we had to explain to all of them that during Sunday School, we had to go along with whatever the parents had told their children. No setting them straight! Just nod and smile. Then there were the friendly cashiers who, maybe, still believed? They would ask our kids if Santa was coming to their house, and our kids would truthfully say, “No.” They left it to me to explain to the shocked cashier that “We don’t do Santa Claus.”

We did, however, engage in the theft of shed baby teeth. Eric left it to me to play Tooth Fairy because I could sneak into a room more quietly. Unfortunately, a few times I just plain forgot, and the kids had to do a Take Two. Occasionally, one of them would ask in all seriousness, “Mom, is there really a Tooth Fairy?” I would truthfully answer, “No.” But they puzzled over that for years and had fun leaving handwritten notes for whoever it was that was buying up their teeth. I wrote them replies in very tiny letters.

To confuse matters, we had a custom of leaving a Susan B. Anthony dollar in exchange for a tooth (nicknamed "tooth fairy dollar"), and then we started leaving those same Susan B. Anthony dollars at the bottom of the fuzzy red non-wearable stockings on the stair rail. Noticing the connection, some of our kids decided it was Santa who was taking the teeth. And some of them held to a theory that Susan B. Anthony might be the Tooth Fairy, and she filled their Christmas stockings too.

But we never told them a lie – we just let them figure it out themselves. All the presents under our Christmas tree were from real people who loved them.

Because we had a lot of kids in the house, we became everyone’s favorite Christmas charity – in addition to the hand-me-down clothes that regularly came our way.

Similarly, my mom told the story of one year the Protestant Women of the Chapel needed an idea for a Christmas project. I don’t remember where we were at the time, but Mom recommended a money tree. People could just hang money on the tree and then they would find someone who needed the money and present the tree to them. The idea took off really well – sure, put money on the tree for a needy family! Only, in the end, embarrassingly, they didn’t have a family, so they lamely decided to give the tree to … The Atanacio Family!! (Us.) The officers’ wives couldn’t think of anyone who could be more needy than an enlisted man’s family.

Well, when Eric and I started having kids, there were several years when we had long, long sessions opening presents. The kids themselves wanted to give something to everybody, so they would make little paper creations, like crayon drawings and stapled books, and then wrap them in wrapping paper scraps with lots of tape. They were very proud of their little paper things. But nine people (counting Mom and Dad) times eight presents each is 72 presents!! Some of the older kids had some money so they didn’t make little paper things, but it still made for a long morning.

And one friend had a ministry for Christmas and really wanted to bless our big family. She went to local businesses and solicited their leftovers, then carefully wrapped everything and labeled them “from Santa.” After church on Christmas Eve, upon our departure, we found our car stuffed with these Dollar Store presents that we took home and put under the tree. Not knowing who they were for or what was under the paper, we just passed them out. The kids got more than one of several of the little plastic games and toys, and we weren’t sure what to do with them all.

Another friend’s family made it a project to bless another family each year, and one year, they decided on us. They asked for wish lists from all the kids, and their sizes. That wasn’t hard, so we collected the data and sent it to them. We were stunned when this family brought presents for our kids – every single thing on every list! They delivered them to our house and carefully placed the huge stacks under and around the tree. You could not see much of the tree anymore.

One year, we were advised to visit the Salvation Army. There were some really nice toys there! Another year, the home of another homeschooling friend with a large family burned down and when people heard that, they decided these kids needed lots of toys! The mother begged us to take some of those toys off their hands so her kids would not be spoiled.

But when it was all said and done, I realize that those were not the times our kids remembered the most. Sometimes in the abundance of presents and the papercuts that ensued from all the unwrapping, their eyes would glaze over and they would become weary of the “stuff.” The abundance of “stuff” never brings happiness. (See VeggieTales’ Madame Blueberry for more information.)

Eventually, the 72 presents routine gave way to a reliance on a gift exchange idea. That way, the kids could concentrate their efforts on just one person, finding out what they really would treasure and being able to spend more money on it. This carried over to married couples, when they left home to become one with somebody else, and then married couples with kids when the cousins began to multiply. 

One year, one of the babies “picked out” an animal bath glove for an uncle. It seemed reasonable because that’s the relative the baby had in the draw and the baby actually reached for the glove when asked what they wanted to give to Uncle Matt, but for some reason, Uncle Matt was not as exuberant as he should have been. But … Why tell this story? Everybody has already heard it!

So if it wasn't stuff, what did make our kids happy at Christmas time?

Going caroling around the neighborhood. 

Sometimes we just showed up at a particular friend’s house because they loved to hear us sing, and then drove to another friend’s house – even in a different town. Other times, we made our rounds in Burrows and blessed our neighbors, or sang at Carroll Manor for the residents, who made their way to the common area with their walkers and wheelchairs just for our performance.

Sometimes we went with friends, and sometimes we just had our family. Sometimes we brought cookies with us and sometimes we were invited in for a treat. We always had hugs, and there were always smiles, except when we sang to people who didn’t have storm doors and they were freezing as they tried to keep the door open without inviting us inside.

Making the cookie church. 

It was a recipe in the Farm Journal Cookie Cookbook. We made the church according to the recipe every year once we started doing it. Some years, we had a sign for our own (real) church out front, with a tiny nativity set out in the “front yard.” We often had friends over to help, and one year, we made two churches side-by-side. One was for our Israeli Messianic Jewish friends – they made a synagogue. 

Last year, just about all our kids made cookie churches and I put pictures of them in a line down my Facebook post. They are always encrusted with various candies. Sometimes the happy pastor and his wife are greeting their congregants at the open doors, and other times, imaginative kids may make an entire crime scene with gingerbread fellas up on the rooftop rendering their mates unconscious by hurling snowballs.

There was always a Christmas program of some kind. 

As exemplified by our cookie church, we always celebrate Christmas by being in church, yea, even when Christmas is on a Sunday, or especially when Christmas is on a Sunday. There’s always a Sunday School program with children singing something like “I’m Gonna Wrap Up Myself For Christmas and Tie Me With a Big Red Bow,” or maybe “Christmas Is a Time to Love,” by Psalty the Singing Songbook. 

One year, our church did “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” about a normal church trying to do a business-as-usual Christmas Pageant with an angelic Mary and shepherds in their fathers’ bathrobes, when a rowdy welfare family decides to crash the party and get all the major parts. Emily played the teenager with the black eye who played Mary in the pageant. Chris played the goody-two-shoes son of the director, and Susie was Gladys, the Angel of the Lord who whacked the shepherds and yelled “Shazam!!”

Another year, when our church in Delphi was meeting in an auction barn, a talented church member built an entire set inside the auction barn, and we had a play on Christmas Day. 

Christmas plays, cantatas, children’s musicals, and the like, with sets that were left up from the dress rehearsal the night before so that the pastor and the worship band had to work around the manger at center stage – yes, some kind of program has always been on the agenda, from the time I sang the solo at Travis AFB when I was four.

The Christmas Eve service.

This is a service at Calvary Chapel of Lafayette, Indiana, that we haven’t missed since the inception of the church in 1982. In the early years, we had those messy white candles with the little sleeve to catch the drips. You were supposed to pass the flame from candle to candle till the whole place was lit up. It reminded you of this popular 70s song, Pass It On. But the sleeves didn’t always catch the drips. So, Pastor Joe tried using cigarette lighters one year – bad idea, since many of us were non-smokers. Most of us couldn’t get them lit and the rest burned their fingers. Now, we just have the LED kind that decorate the church without melted wax or open flames.

The first year, I really wanted to sing “O Holy Night” so I got together with Tom Camp, and he was able to accompany me on guitar with enough coaching. But it got even better. After a few years, we had a tiny church choir and I was sure we could sing “For Unto Us a Child Is Born” from Handel’s Messiah, if we practiced hard enough. But the eyes of the choir members exuded fear, just like those of the shepherds during the angelic invasion. Actually, they just didn’t want to do it and wouldn’t even try. 

So I said, “Fine, I’ll have my kids do it instead.” Lisa was ten and Emily was eight. We started in January, learning a measure or two at a time, singing a capella in our station wagon on the way to church. Over the course of the year, the four of us could sing a quartet. And we did! The next year, we added “The Hallelujah Chorus.” And each time we added another child, our choir grew.

The Christmas Eve service always has plenty of music, but since our family learned “The Hallelujah Chorus,” we have always used it as a finale to the program. One year, we did try something else, but we were dealt some reproach from Pastor Joe’s mother. She didn’t come to this service to hear variety – she came for The Hallelujah Chorus!

One year when our children were still small, a snowstorm made us very late to church, but we still pressed forward to get there.  When we opened the door of the church, Pastor Joe saw us and told us to come on up.  The kids kicked off their boot, assembled in front, and sang The Hallelujah Chorus.  Another year, we had every one of our kids singing with us, along with Chris’s wife Kayla, who was pregnant with Rori. That year, we sang 20 songs from the Messiah and sang several concerts.  Vivian knew all the songs by heart, but because she was so short, she sat perched upon a stool.

One year, our church met in a different church’s building, because a couple of arson-happy teenagers burned down our building. It would have been easy to say, “Well, since we don’t have a building this year, let’s just not have the service.” But the church needed that tradition. It is a victory shout to the Lord. It is saying, “Whatever satan throws at us, we are convinced that You are on the throne, and we will continue to lift up your Name.”

You guessed it! The Christmas Eve service this week speaks the same truth. Even though 2020 has been difficult for a lot of our church family, we will meet together Thursday evening. Our family will be assembled from several towns in Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois, and supplemented for the first time ever by Pastor Joe’s wife Peggy and their professional singer daughter, Julie. 

We will sing Christmas carols together and we’ll stand at the end to The Hallelujah Chorus. I will very likely close my eyes during parts of it (and try not to lose my place in the music, that most of our kids memorized years ago) and simply worship God. Some of our church family will come back after years of being separated from us, and we will love on them as if they had never been gone.

What can I say about The Hallelujah Chorus and what it means to us? It is The Song of the Church in Heaven, from the Book of Revelation. We will be there. It is Truth from God’s Word:

And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, "Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!” ~Rev. 19:6

Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!" ~Rev. 11:15

I can tell you that when it comes to Christmas traditions, Santa Claus is controversial. One “Mean Santa” recently denied a kid a Nerf gun and the video went viral. And Christmas trees, mistletoe, Yule logs, the Grinch, Mr. Scrooge, and even wassailing and eggnog have become controversial, questionable. Presents are often too materialistic.

For the Christian, the meaning and purpose of Christmas are clear. Christmas celebrates the First Advent. But the observance of Communion, which usually also happens during our Christmas Eve service, reminds us that there will be a Second Advent. Jesus will be the Ruler of the World, and there will finally be Peace on Earth. 

“…and He SHALL reign Forever and Ever and Ever…”

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread;

and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me."

In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me."

For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes. ~1 Cor. 11:23-26

Amen. Even so, Lord Jesus, Come Quickly!