Book of Days

Some folks open their advent calendar windows in the morning, but we are more of a nighttime household; we like to hold the open window up to a light source in the darkness in order to illuminate the scene within. And tonight, in these wee small hours of Christmas Eve becoming Christmas Day, now that all the company has left, my mom and dad, my sister, my nephews, their wives and their kids… it is again just Seth and me and Haden the cat, here next to me atop a basket beside the Christmas tree. We opened tonight’s advent calendar window––the last of them, now that Christmas is here. The scene is lovely, as is the night.

This time each Christmas Eve, these moments when most of the folks around me are tucked into bed, are each year some of my favorite. Wishes abound this time of year for peace and for joy… and these are the moments when they seem most tangible. It is quiet and the darkness is, as Dylan Thomas wrote, close and holy. The lights we use to illuminate the midwinter night pierce the darkness with warmth. It may have been a month or more of madness leading up to this moment, but now that Christmas is here, there is not much left to do but enjoy its presence.

The nights now are their darkest but our hearts are open and our celebrations all focus on bringing light to that darkness. Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, Kwanzaa, all involve candles, all call down the light, all invite us to be a light ourselves, a light in the darkness. And this I wish for you: that you be a light, that you encourage that light in others. Pure and simple.

If I have it in me, and I think I do, I’ll be writing again this year about each of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Just as there is more than one way of reckoning time, there is, as well, more than one way of reckoning these Twelve Days. We subscribe to the notion that Christmas is a season outside ordinary time beginning with Christmas Eve, blossoming into Christmas Day, which then moves into the Twelve Days of Christmas, half of which are in the old year, half in the new. Christmas is just beginning. Sit a spell with us, here in this close and holy darkness, and enjoy it. Merry Christmas.