It’s the mall a few days before Christmas. I expect Tommy any minute, and we’re going to look at earrings. There was going to be an espresso machine but he’s convinced himself that I don’t “need” it. Of course I was the original one to waffle about my “needs” but then he latched onto my waffling, and now I can’t get him to stop with the waffle. So it’s earrings.

Christmas isn’t exactly what it used to be. For starters, Dad and I didn’t pick out a nine foot spruce pine and haul it home in the trailer. Marybeth no longer goes behind me correcting ornament placement, and Katherine isn’t at the piano pounding out Jolly Old Saint Nicholas. 

Another Christmas is coming but even knowing that there will be no ham lurking in Mom’s oven and no stockings on the fireplace, I still feel very full. It’s been years since there was a real tree and two thousand twinkling lights on the bushes out front. Some things really do die with our loved ones. But I feel full because in that house on the hill, I still have a mom waiting. I’m going home. 

I could wax eternal on how I feel about that home in West Virginia. When you live long enough in one place, with people that you love enough, your memories become part of the architecture. The scarred kitchen table assumes a personality of its own with a sage countenance born from years of homework and Monopoly games and birthday cakes. The fireplace, stained with soot, has read many books over my shoulder.

And in a few days, that ham-less home will still carry the thoughts and memories of Christmases of the past. It has observed them all, the happy ones and the empty ones. And when standing within the walls, I feel those things. I’m thankful for that. To remember and to miss is better than to have nothing to remember at all. 

And there’s always the hope of new traditions. Sentimental wimps like me cringe at that term. New tradition? You might as well suggest we chuck the Thanksgiving turkey and grill hamburgers. Nothing good can come from change. 

But sometimes the winding path narrows and leaves you no choice but to release your grip on the old and move into the new. I now have Tommy’s family and a mother-in-law who makes a mean green bean casserole. I have two younger brothers and a younger sister who say hilarious things and cheat at Scategories. And a father-in-law who never forgets to take a picture of us.

But for all the moments that do change, there is something about Christmas that remains a bright spot of constancy. The star that never burns out. The ornament that never shatters. The tree that never sheds a dying pine needle.

Hope. The age-old, unalterable, unmovable concept of hope. 

We’ve heard the Christmas Story so many times, we no longer understand it. Listened to so many Christmas carols that it no longer moves us. It shouldn’t surprise us that a baby was born two thousand years ago, but that a baby was born to bring peace to earth, hope to the hopeless, love to the unloved, that should awe us. 

God’s gift through that baby Jesus is the one thing that remains beautiful even when we sit alone on Christmas Eve. It’s an offer that death and loneliness cannot steal, and time cannot wither. It is not dependent on self-destructive families. Not reliant on paychecks. God does not change from our childhood to old age, bend because of circumstance. His hope cannot perish or explode like a star in the twisted hands of chance and probability.

He said, “These things I have spoken to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage. I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

You and I may wake up the day after Christmas, a little worse for the wear if there was rum punch involved, and nothing may have changed. At the dawn of the 26^th, likely the same frustrating relationships and exhausting occupations will meet us at the door, and the same crooked noses and sorry-looking teeth greet us in the mirror. But take heart, He’s overcome the world. 

Even when I ache for what I do not have or cry over the empty chairs at dinner, I can hold onto that with both hands – the unchanging, eternal promise of Hope. Of wrongs made right. Of joy where before there was only a long line of broken expectations. Of meaning because you were created for a purpose. Of peace because your sin and your failure was taken up by Him. 

So whether our Christmas festivities are as warm as a mug of hot cocoa or as bitter as the bottom of the coffee pot, I hope to remember that. I hope you do, too.

 Well, I feel someone kissing the top of my head. It must be Tommy. Earring time.  

Long lay the world in sin and error pining till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.  A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Truly He taught us to love another, His law is love and His gospel is peace. Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother, and in His name all oppression shall cease.