My Favorite Ornament

 

The Little Angel

            Mother said that I smiled and laughed when she held me up to see the little angel hung high in the tree. Since I was only nine months old at the time I don’t actually remember this, but I do know that I’ve loved the ornament for as long as I can remember. Seeing her every year always brings, if not laughter, at least a smile to my face. Too fragile to hang now, she often rests in a place of honor on my mantel.

We’ve spent a lot of years together, 70 to be exact. Even though she remains in the form of a baby wrapped in discolored swaddling clothes, like I, she has begun to show her age. Her embossed paper wings aren’t as white as they once were, and the silver foil backing on them has peeled a bit around the edges. The points of her halo are also a little worse for wear. There are a few small cracks and even a small piece missing in the composite material of her face.

Unlike hers, my hair is no longer blonde like it was when I was a very young child. Yet in the important things, this little angel and I are still a lot alike.  Her eyes are wide with wonder, and she still smiles sweetly in anticipation of the joys of Christmas. May it always be so for me as well.

 

Take Joy

I am fortunate because for most of my life, I’ve been a happy person. Friends have accused me of wearing rose-colored glasses, and no doubt that is true. Certainly there are things in our world that are cause for great sadness and concern, and my own life has not been without problems. 2005 was a particularly difficult year because five people close to me died that year, beginning with my mother in April, and my husband only three days before Christmas. It took awhile to believe that I could ever be happy again, but I woke one morning knowing that I was not only going to be all right, I was going to be happy. Shortly after that realization I made the decision to be grateful for what I have rather than dwell on what I don’t, and to make a conscious effort to find at least one small thing each day that makes me happy. Often it is something as simple as really noticing the beauty in a single leaf that has fallen, or the way the light reflecting from a mosaic table casts dancing patterns across my living room wall. In these moments of true appreciation I find contentment and happiness.

Every year around this time in December, there comes a morning when I wake and happily greet something that happens only at this time of year. It’s the gift of an inexplicable effervescent feeling that I can only describe as joy. Christmas is coming! I’ll admit that once or twice I’ve been as bah-humbug as Scrooge. But I’ve also in turn embraced or dismissed everything from traditional Christian tradition of honoring the birth of Christ, the Yule Log blessings of the Celts, the gift-giving traditions from Saturnalia, kissing under the mistletoe from Norse mythology, the festival of lights leading to the winter solstice, to Santa Claus. In short, my beliefs and traditions have evolved over the years, but the one thing that has remained constant has been the feeling of joy.

As a member of a small congregation, I was often a part of Christmas programs. One year I read a poem that had the refrain “Take Joy!”  The poem has long been lost to me, but that refrain continues to come back to me. When I think of it two things come to mind. The first is that the feeling of joy that comes unbidden to me is a gift. The other is the reminder that I may also choose to search for, and take joy.

 In this busy time of year, in whatever your traditions may be, may you take joy.