I
got to experience one of those little fun memory moments at our Christmas Eve
service. It was a great service, by the
way. We had 55 people there, and a good
mixture of Seaside regulars and out of town guests. The theme was A Galveston Island Christmas,
with poetic testimonies from Island residents.
Now wait a minute before you tune out.
The residents were pretty special.
A sand dollar. A sea gull. A star fish.
A catfish. Now how’s that for
Island-y? Six-year-old Korty volunteered
to hand out the gift bags we gave everyone who came, and after a while he came
up to me and said, in the most
business-like voice he could muster, “Pastor Kelley, I’m finished with my job.” I thanked him heartily and he rushed away to
check in with Mom and Dad to see what mischief he could discover next.
The
folks who came were all in a festive, jolly mood from the moment they
arrived. It made for a really fun service. Like when we all caught a mistake at the same
time in the words to the music video of Angels We Have Heard on High. Whoever put it together misspelled the word
“angel.” For them it had become
A-N-G-L-E. Angle … as in “right” or
“acute” or all those other geometry-kind of words. One girl on particular got tickled with the
mistake, and when we made eye contact and I was already grinning from ear to
ear, she pretty much lost it. Then every
time the word appeared again on the screen, we instantly made eye contact again,
and fought to restrain a guffaw again.
That was the funniest song I have sung all year.
After
the service an entire family approached me.
Mom and Dad and four lovely young teenagers, one of whom was my cohort
in hilarity regarding the holy “angles.”
Seems they had a story to tell.
The Dad started the contact by asking how long I had been at the
church. I replied “20 years.” He smiled a knowing grin and mummered, “Yep, I
thought so.” The Mom continued, “We have
been here several times before on Christmas Eve. Whenever we find ourselves in Galveston.” And then one of the daughters couldn’t hold
it in any longer, “And we have a story about something SHE did,” pointing to
one of the other sisters. And the
pointee immediately turned red as a beet and cried, “You’re not,” which of
course was like tossing fuel on a flame for the other sisters. They began the story, and between the three
of them, managed to get it all out, despite the objections and abject
humiliation of little sis. Seems that ten
years before, when said little sis was but a six-year-old youngling, we were
following our Seaside Christmas Eve tradition of taking goodies to people who
have to work on the holiday. Back then
it just happened to be during our homemade cookies phase (we have graduated to
donuts now, and this year we even added individual Christmas ornaments to the
mix). So our little sister could hardly
wait for the service to end so she could race to the table and grab a bagful of
cookies. Which she promptly ate. Nine of the dozen, so their family lore
tells. Needless to say, the star of the show
was mortified. In an effort to calm her
spirits, I placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and leaned in close to whisper,
“That’s OK. I have just the thing to
make it all better. And entire box of
donuts just for you. And you eat every
one of them.” Somehow, however, the rest
of the family managed to hear my efforts at consolation. And their laughter almost drowned out young
sister’s curt, yet polite, reply, “No thank you. I’m good.”
Ah. You gotta love the creation
of family Christmas Eve lore.
Luke
2:20 says, “The shepherds returned,
glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which
were just as they had been told.”
Father,
thank you for close-knit families and special Christmas traditions. Amen.
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