Our First Christmas

For the past few Christmases, I've noticed how one particular carol seems to stand out during the season. Usually it starts out by grabbing my attention with its frequency--coming on the radio, in a store where I'm shopping, or in my own Christmas music playlist. So I start listening closer to the words, and out of it suddenly blooms a meaning or lesson I'd missed in my passive, mechanical hearing of the song in the past. Songs like "Good King Wenceslas," "The Little Drummer Boy," "Joy to the World," and "Oh Holy Night" are just some examples.

This year it was tougher to decide. The song that kept coming up was "Silver Bells," with its pretty descriptions of Christmas time in the city. It was a little ironic, considering I spent much of my Christmas season working at my internship in downtown Seattle, and I started noticing that the stoplights do indeed "blink a bright red and green." But all this song does is paint a highly idealized picture of Christmas in the city. So I'm not sure it counts as THE song.

Then there's "It Must Have Been the Mistletoe" which is all about our first Christmas. Equally ironic/appropriate. But once again, it's a pretty little song with very little depth. "Our first Christmas [has CERTAINLY been] more than we'd be dreaming of." And that's about it from this song. I like it! And it's been fun in the context of our first Christmas together EVER (not just as husband and wife). But it's not quite the meditative music I was looking for.

So what was it?

I'd heard this song before. It happened to come on the radio as we were headed to my in-laws' for my first Pacific Northwest Christmas. I got "Holy Spirit chills" at the words and the depth of what Christ's coming to Earth means. I can't fully fathom it! But this song has an angelic quality to it, that tugs at the heart to worship. And it helps that this video was paired with one of my favorite Christmas movies (and depictions of the Nativity). So moving. Listen to it again and let it sink in. Doesn't it just make you want to dance? (Maybe that's just me...)

He is here with us. In our first Christmas, in our new family, in our new home here on the west coast. He is there with my family on the east coast, with my parents on their 30th (plus some) Christmas and first with a truly empty nest, in my childhood home. With all those I miss terribly at this time of year, on both sides of Heaven. I needed this assurance this year, more than ever before, it seems. He's here with us in the homesickness, life changes, joys and challenges of marriage, and everything we face on this earth. He became fully human, and was yet fully God (still can't grasp the fullness of that one either!) so He understands it all. I find such great comfort in this.

It turned out to be a very blessed first Christmas. If I tried to list the ways, I'd probably reach the blog post limit! But at the heart of them all is this--God is with us!