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A Heavenly Christmas By Jenny Baxter
Christmas mean different things to different people.
Jenny Baxter shares what Christmas means to her. And how it can be a time release love and forgiveness.
When I was growing up, Christmas Day was always so much fun! After we woke at the crack of dawn, we would discover our stockings at the end of our beds, and unpack the contents in a flash. My sister and I would rush to our parent’s room to show off our booty. Our older sisters would join us there to enjoy the excitement.
Then, still in our pyjamas, we’d all go out to the lounge room and open the presents that had been slowly gathering under the tree during past weeks. The tree always had the same shiny ornaments that we cherished year after year. It was a special time.
Soon, it was time to get ready for our family Christmas party. We always gathered at the home of one of my mother’s siblings – and sometimes it was our turn. After lunch, we would play games outside in the summer sun. At Auntie Gwen’s place, Mum’s identical twin, we played croquet on the back lawn. At Auntie Elaine’s, it was backyard cricket. At Uncle Ray’s, it was also cricket, but a good deal of singing carols around the piano too. Every year, three of my uncles (our three tenors) sang a trio, a family favourite, especially for the children. It was always a great day.
However, I was blissfully unaware of how difficult it was for the adults. Uncle Ken’s wife had left him, and he always arrived with three kids on his own. Papa, my grandfather, whose gorgeous wife Lillian died before I was born, would come with the new wife, English Aunt Win. Years afterwards, I discovered that Win and the adult step-children didn’t see eye to eye on many things at all.
And secrets abounded. Unbeknown to us children, some of our cousins were adopted – not even they knew. Later on, Ray had Parkinson’s disease, and later still, the twins both suffered with breast cancer.
So how did they fare, as faithful God-fearing people, arriving at the Christmas celebration every year, with so much baggage? Why was I totally unaware of their struggles? I am sure it was because they put the children at the centre of the festivities. The little ones were honoured, given precedence and provided with a safe and loving space. So the adults actually had fun, as they chose to put aside their woes and worries. They operated in a space provided by love and forgiveness. The sense of community and family that was generated was strong.
Christmas is a special time of family and connection. Most families have their ‘issues’, and plenty of people have a miserable Christmas as a result. How about this Christmas, the adults in your family agree on this – to give the children a central place in family celebrations. I guarantee as they do, as they choose to forget about their own storms and rain clouds and concentrate on providing fun for the young’uns, there will be a new atmosphere generated. A glimpse of heaven is created when the children are at the centre and the adults surround them, to guard and provide a safe space.
I think it exemplifies these words famously said a long time ago: ‘Let the little children come ... for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
I think he was right, don’t you?
Jenny Baxter
Editor
Christian Woman magazine
Australia/New Zealand
www.christianwoman.com.au
Jenny Baxter plans to spend this Christmas Day playing cricket, eating Christmas pudding ice-cream, and having a wonderful time with her five children in country Victoria, Australia. Simultaneously, she will be very aware of her Dad with Alzheimer’s disease, and her father-in-law with terminal melanoma. It could well be the last Christmas for them both. She will have a great day
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