Stories

the magic continues, even as life is winding down

After all, Christmas is basically a story.

Like all good stories, it happened once upon a time, a long time ago, and continues to happen year after year. Like the trickster spirit Coyote, it shapeshifts over and over again to meet the storyteller’s need. My story of Christmas is not the same as your story of Christmas. My story of Christmas today is not the same as my story of Christmas seven decades ago.

Almost all the major faith traditions tell ancient stories and hold festivals of light in the dark part of the year (if you live in the northern hemisphere) - Advent/Christmas, Hanukkah, Diwali, Kwanzaa, the enlightenment of the Buddha. They’re all stories about something that happened once upon a time, and continues to happen over and over again.

Most of us continue to relive our favorite story lines throughout the years, no matter how old or ill or frail we become. Stories are powerful. So powerful they can draw in folks who are long gone, or perhaps live far away. Retell the story, and you can hear your father singing, you can smell grandmother baking, you can see the lights in your children’s eyes.

When I look at the cover of this book, I remember that we read it to our children every year for several years. (the TV version can’t compete with reading aloud to a child by your side.) When I look at the cover of this book, I am back in those years. Everything else fades away. They have each created their own Christmas stories with their own children by now, and I sometimes wonder if this yearly reading meant as much to them as it did to me….

One of the challenges of living joyfully as life is winding down is that there seem to be fewer ways to retell the stories. If you don’t have the energy to shop for presents or get together with people or go to a concert or midnight service on Christmas Eve, you can feel yourself being swamped by the particular and poignant darkness of grief. Depression lurks outside the door of your heart and mind, offering only a sluggish despair.

Here’s something that might help. You don’t need many props to revisit the stories that mean the most to you.

In recent years my cousin Kris has given me a little gifts that celebrate our Swedish heritage. We are only eight months apart in age and so the gifts she has given me polish the treasure of our long relationship.

When I decorate in our small space, it only takes one or two of these rolling around in my hands before I put them on the mantel to open up years of warm memories of the Swedish side of my family gathered for Christmas traditions. A full turkey dinner on Christmas Eve at the Johnson farm, with rosettes and lingonberries for desert, all those presents under the tree and Grandma down in the floor with the children sharing their glee, midnight service brought to a close with my dad singing Sweet Little Jesus Boy (I knew he really was born as the last note drifted off into the sweet silence!), and the wooden candle holders painted red, and the little tomten guarding the farm, and the yulbock and….

You can literally spend hours reliving the stories that enliven you, retelling them from your so-small new world. When you do, your grief eases and your joy expands and there seems to be enough light to get you through winter after all.

Give it a try! Let me know what you think!