The Christmas Village

I almost didn’t set up the village this year. I bought a lovely candle set from Kirkland’s (dangerous store) that looked great sitting in that same space. Was thinking it might finally be time to retire the Christmas town and go classy instead of tacky. Some of the houses are separating from their foundations or have caved in cardboard walls and tilting chimneys. Aunt Marie’s ceramic Christmas tree occasionally has seizures of flickering lights.  And then I heard some slick blonde influencer wearing stiletto heels and a skin-tight metallic dress on the Today show this morning touting the trendiness of Christmas villages from the 90’s and using strands of icicles on trees because it’s so “retro and so cool.” I wanted to punch her.

Oh, please. You have no clue. My Christmas village is from the 60’s. You are not old enough to understand the meaning of touching the same decorations that your parents and grandparents chose to make your childhood Christmases wonderful. You have no idea how important it is to keep alive traditions because you love and miss the people who shared Christmases with you while those same decorations were set up under the tree or on a table. You have no idea how things, temporary as they may be, connect us to our past and bring us joy, regardless of their dilapidated or un-trendy appearance.

I just went down to the basement, grabbed the box with the Christmas village and set it up once again. The tiny tin cross fell out of the steeple decades ago, and yet, I kept it in a special envelope still scrawled with my childhood handwriting, because even at that age, I fully understood the cross was the most important part. Not all of the houses made the cut and there’s not quite enough room for the little train and all of the figures, but the village is there and lit for another Christmas Eve and that feels right.

So as we approach another celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior in a place that was far from trendy filled with smelly animals and probably even smellier shepherds, find whatever it is that  takes you there, to that place where love was born and away from the eternal madness of this world we live in now.  It may be music or friends gathered around the table or an unexpected gesture of kindness, or even the knowledge that a tiny cardboard church with a crooked steeple and scotch-taped cross is in the same room with you as it has been for the last sixty Christmases.

Love is Love.

Merry Christmas.