It’s been several years (okay, a decade or more) since I sent a Christmas letter, and I only wrote a few. While we sent Christmas cards out every year starting with my oldest child’s first Christmas in 1988, my first Christmas letter was sent in 2000. Twenty years ago. Wow. Here are excerpts from that letter, and one other, as “notes to self” on Christmas Eve 2020.
Today we celebrated Santa Lucia day with Anika in battery-operated, tinsel-draped Lucia crown, bearing a tray full of home-baked (Byerly’s) cookies. We have celebrated this Swedish tradition in mid-December for three years now. For two years we used real candles because I forgot to get batteries. I got tired of picking wax out of Anika’s hair before school, however, so this year I planned ahead for our celebration.
Some of us celebrate, that is. For others, it’s merely … well… not even an observance, really, but more of an irksome ordeal that must be borne — like chicken pox. The first year, Erik mumbled, “why is Anika’s head on fire?” and sat up to reach for a cookie. Last year he growled “I don’t want any of your stupid cookies,” as he rolled over in bed. This morning he took one look at her and sighed with exaggerated patience (as though we were three years old) “I thought I told you I don’t want to do this!”
So much for beloved Old World traditions (Santa Lucia was a beautiful 2nd century Italian Christian martyr, later venerated as a saint. The exact origins or how Sweden came to celebrate Santa Lucia are unclear, but her legend somehow reached Sweden and was combined with existing folk customs and traditions. Lucia Day represents the end of darkness and the return of light at winter’s midpoint).
After I reminded him that it’s just ONE DAY A YEAR, he agreed to meet us in the dining room to read some Bible passages. By flickering candlelight, we took turns reading about “Light” as found throughout God’s Word. We remembered that God created light and said it was good, that His Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, and that Jesus is the light of the world. Things were going along fairly well. I magnanimously overlooked the fact that Erik persisted in trying to blow out the candles. I serenely ignored him when he asked if we had to listen to the Swedish Christmas / Santa Lucia CD.
Finally, we read Jesus’ own words to His followers, letting them penetrate our hearts: “You are the light of the world… Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”
Right about then, Anika sneezed and her Lucia krona flipped into her Julebrod, shattering one of the Lucia glödlampa. That definitively concluded our Santa Lucia festivities for the year 2000.
Sweet traditions like this play a part in helping us keep our focus on Christ — in the face of Christmas According to the Hallmark Channel. The struggle is real, and I find myself remembering what I wrote a few years after that….
A few days ago, I went into an office supply store to purchase decorative stationary for the annual Christmas letter and as I was on my way out my glance fell on a display of magnifying glasses marked “The Perfect Gift.” I wondered, “who would find that to be the perfect gift? I can’t think of anyone who would consider that to be the perfect gift.”
On the way to my car I succumbed to the marketing ploy and found myself thinking “a magnifying glass would make the perfect stocking stuffer… it’s small, inexpensive, a bit unconventional for those who have tired of baseball cards and LipSmackers…” Then my thoughts turned to Mary’s Magnificat in the gospel of Luke, and other Bible passages, and to just how one uses a magnifying lens.
A magnifying lens brings into focus something that is too small to be seen with ordinary sight. It enlarges an object for the purpose of appreciating its complexity or design. Or worth. In the dictionary definition, “magnify” usually means to enlarge something beyond its true size. But an archaic meaning is “to extol.” In the Bible, it means “to glorify or esteem highly.”
That’s what we do at Christmas. We peer from the 21st century at the ancient birth of an ordinary child to unremarkable parents in an insignificant location for one reason… to remember that he wasn’t ordinary… to magnify his coming.
Every element of the Christmas story magnifies — helps us to see clearly — something significant about Jesus… the star magnifies our need for guidance, direction and light. The stable birth magnifies that Jesus was a leader and king positioned in humility — an example for all. The angels’ song magnifies first that Jesus’ birth was a supernatural happening, and second, our responsibility to tell others: Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. And so on, and so on, and so on.
This Christmas is unlike any we’ve ever encountered. In many ways, the experience is reduced. Lessened, maybe. Simplified, certainly. Maybe that’s how God gets our attention. The message remains: Jesus is the light of the world, and our glad opportunity is to magnify His coming. Even in 2020. O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.
Karna Eastlund Haugen 