Some favorite Christmas traditions

Traditions can be wonderful. In fact, traditions can give meaning and permanence to life.

Who, to this day, can’t remember their school colors and name the school mascot? Our high school colors were maroon and grey, we were the Indians, and the band played the school song each and every time a touchdown was scored. Even now, after nearly four decades, I can hear the song in my mind.

When the National Anthem is sounded, I rise from my seat, come to attention, and give proper respect. The Marine Corps strengthened that tradition but my father, a Navy World War II vet, taught me the tradition from a young age. Life is full of traditions that help measure and strengthen the ebb and flow of the rhythms of life.

A new tradition in my family is Cookie Day. My wife’s birthday is Dec. 18 and, for the last several years, she has chosen to celebrate it by having the grandchildren over to make cookies. She doesn’t want gifts, just the kids for a couple of hours. Both boys and girls learn to roll the dough, shape it, use cookie cutters, bake the cookies, and then decorate them with icing of various colors, sprinkles, chips, and whatever else she spies at the supermarket. The parents are expected to help and I am the official photographer of the annual event. It’s messy but these are memories in the making.

When I was a kid, it was tradition for our family to go to my mom’s parents’ house on Christmas Eve. We would eat, exchange gifts, and play with cousins. I don’t know what the adults did, but the kids had sparklers, bottle rockets, and fire crackers to mark the occasion.

A few years ago, we began a new tradition on Christmas Eve. I don’t remember when we began holding a Christmas Eve Communion Service, but it must have been 15 or 20 years ago. Someone, I’m sure, thought it would be a good thing to do in the church I then served so he tried it. We’ve been going to Christmas Eve Communion ever since.

I miss going to Grandpa and Grandma’s. Grandpa died in 1973 and Grandma followed around a decade later. The memories I have of those days will be with me forever but I have to confess that I enjoy Christmas Eve even more these days. Last year, was special because all my children and grandchildren were gathered together as we joined with other believers in singing the songs of the season, hearing the reading of the real Christmas story, praying for peace and for each other and, finally, coming together to kneel at the altar to receive the bead and the wine.

It’s a funny thing about Christmas Eve at our church; anywhere from a third to a half of the people who come and share this time with us are not regular attendees at our church. A couple of years ago, we had to go to two Christmas Eve services to accommodate everyone. Parents with small children usually like the earlier service so they can get the kids in bed while the empty-nesters and those with older kids often gravitate to the later service.

Christmas, for many people, is a hectic, rushed, stress-filled occasion. But on Christmas Eve, there is the opportunity to forget about the shopping, the bills, and the football games and come to what Christmas is really all about. “This is the Body of Christ given for you,” the minister will say as he gives the bread to each weary worshiper. “This is the Blood of Christ poured out for you,” another will say as those receiving the sacramental wine kneel in the presence of unlimited love and grace.

It is a time to give thanks, to pray for others, to remember those in wars far from home, to receive forgiveness for past sins committed, to hear the words that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting men’s sins against them.” It is a time to start fresh and begin to believe again.

Some of the people who join with us, I would imagine, attend a church that doesn’t offer Christmas Eve Communion. Others may currently attend no church at all. Some have been burned by Christians or by the Church and are making, perhaps, a slight gesture of coming home. Some come with friends and family. Some come because it is tradition or because they wish to start a new tradition.

Here’s my invitation to you: This Christmas Eve, find a church that holds a service of Holy Communion and begin or continue a holy tradition. If you wish to join with us on Christmas Eve, we would be honored to share this sacred time with you. W e celebrate an “open table” which means if you are a believer in Christ, you are welcome to partake of the Bread and the Wine. We invite the children, too. In fact, this is the one service of the year where we don’t have a nursery — we think that, at least once, the family should all worship in the same room. There may be a crying baby or two but wasn’t there a crying baby on the first Christmas night?

From our church family, from my family, and from me, may God bless you richly and may you have a very Merry Christmas!