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Guest Column: Choosing simplicty for the holidays?

By Doris Northstrom/ for The Herald

Candles and twinkling lights warm the memories of yesterday’s celebrations. Whether in simplicity or over the top preparations, we mold the events of today with all that has gone before.

Christmas time is condensed living, teaching us, gathering, planning and sharing the best we have with our loved ones. Squeezing the most from fleeting moments, caught up in familiar carols, programs and making gifts, we find our way through the magical maze of festivities.

The year we lost my sister, Joann’s baby girl, Jori, four days before Christmas, we opted to stay home from evening services and lit candles in the windows, softening our sorrow a bit, quietly remembering the beauty of her short life. Today, we filter experiences through the amazing gift of grace wrapped in small moments of joy. Blessing another in memory changes sorrow into courage.

Working with children’s programs in our church over the years, the preparations at home came last and one year the tree stood naked for a week awaiting decorations. As we left the church the evening of the program, the message of the children rang in my ears, “We are standing on holy ground. And I know that there are angels all around.”

Later, as I sat in my chair at home, delightfully exhausted, looking over at our bare tree, I smiled and realized it was OK. God, in His wisdom, had already decorated all those precious children and me.

The year I cared for Mother through a winter illness, engulfed in her needs, I left the outdoor Nativity, props, and lights lying dormant in our shed. I kept promising my 14-year-old son, Brian, that we would arrange them soon.

“Mom, it has to be this week,” he said. “The neighborhood needs our light.”

As I drove back from Mother’s place that evening, planning a quick dinner in my head, I looked up and what to my tired, wondering eyes should appear? Our son on the roof lighting a star he had created from plywood, the Nativity shining across our garden where bushes and trees in a rainbow of colors ignited the neighborhood and me.

Brian climbed down off the ladder, his cheeks flushed. “We’re ready,” he said. I squeezed his shoulders. “I love it. I think you used every light,” I said as we stood in the sheen of blinking blue and gold.

Across our sleepy valley the moon climbs full and bright in the sky as chimes ring out heralding this blessed season. Christmas comes quietly, a quest, then a surprise for the heart, and almost more love than we can hold.

Through the years we gain, we lose, we grow. And find “goodbye’s” tempered by the joys of many “hello’s.” We find room at the inn for our best selves knowing how deep and how wide is the reservoir of life that fills us continually.

Reach Doris Northstrom at dorisnorthstrom@aol.com.