I Love Christmas
I Love Christmas
Christmas is indeed the most beautiful time of the year. It’s not just a day, it’s a season. It’s a frame of mind, an attitude. A time when most people will give and receive love freely and willingly without expectation. And it’s a time for us to reflect on what Christmas is all about.
I truly love everything about Christmas. The lights, tinsel, carols, cards, lawn and store displays, sugary Hallmark TV movies, Santa Claus, elves, reindeer, candy, gift giving and anything Christmas. I think people smile more during the Christmas season. They have more patience. They’re more polite to each other. I don’t think the season starts too early and I don’t think it’s too commercialized. Everyone has their own preference but I love it all.
To share my joy of Christmas I put out a small Christmas display. Some multicolored lights are on a few bushes in the front yard. And in a little wooded area at the side of my house I have a very simple, lighted nativity scene. Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus are in a stable with a sheep and cow lying close and the three wise men are reverently looking on nearby.
My neighbors, Mallory Miller, her precious, delightful five-year-old daughter, Lilly Loden, and their friend John Hamblin have a stunning, scenic Christmas display in their yard. The eves of their house are decorated with white icicles. A white Christmas tree has been formed by angling lights down from high up on the trunk of a large hickory tree. And almost every other thing in their yard, shrubs, bushes, lamp post, mail box, windows, is covered with various colored lights.
The lights are synchronized to blink off and on to the beat of computerized Christmas carols that play throughout the evening. It is absolutely beautiful and breathtaking. When I stand outside watching and listening, it feels like the Christmas spirit has literally been absorbed into my body and is flowing through my soul. I love it.
The first night after John had finished the project, Lilly and her grandma, Lisa Miller, were standing outside looking at the flashing lights and listening to the Christmas carols.
“What do you think of all this, Lilly?” Lisa asked her little grandchild who stood there pondering the display. “Do you like it?”
“Yeah,” Lilly responded indifferently then looked up at her grandma and excitedly exclaimed, “Gaga did you see the baby Jesus lit up there in the woods?”
“The baby Jesus meant more to her than all the bling,” Lisa said. “Children get it. They know what Christmas is really about.”
When Lisa shared this story with me it really made me stop and think. She’s absolutely right. And we all might understand and appreciate Christmas a little more if we could let go of the adult restraints and political correctness and see it through the eyes of a child.
Merry Christmas. Keep Smiling.
Linda Messmer can be reached at 812-448-8725.
- -- Posted by JoshuaPearson on Wed, Apr 12, 2017, at 7:08 AM
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