Holding On To Christmas

I imagine that Mary & Joseph felt that in a much greater way than any of us, because the child that they held in their arms was God's only begotten Son. They were responsible for raising God's child!

ILL. The late Erma Bombeck in her book, "If Life is a bowl of Cherries, Why Am I Always in the Pits?", recalled the legend of a church where the chimes rang miraculously whenever someone gave a generous gift.

But the chimes hadn't rung for a long time, even though kings & potentates had come to give gifts of gold & silver & precious gems. The chimes had not rung for a long, long time.

But one Christmas Eve a little peasant boy came down the aisle & knelt before the altar. As he thought about the Christ child lying in a manger, he took off his tattered coat & laid it on the altar. When he did, the chimes rang loud & joyously.

Erma Bombeck wrote, "I've heard the chimes ring, too. I remember a Christmas when one of my sons brought me a piece of tattered construction paper on which he had tried to draw a picture of praying hands, & underneath the picture he had written, 'O Come, Holy Spit.'"

"When I saw that," she said, "I heard the chimes ring & I knew that a very special gift had been given."

"On another Christmas I received a shoebox all clumsily wrapped. When I opened it, I found two baseball cards & a piece of gum. Again I heard the chimes ring."

"And I heard the chimes ring the time when the kids got together & cleaned the garage & gave that as their Christmas present to me."

"Those days are long gone," she remembered, "days when we fashioned lace doilies into snow flakes, & pipe cleaners into Christmas trees. When we took empty spools & used them for candleholders. Those days are long gone."

"I remember little feet coming down the stairs with a hand made gift all wrapped up in $2.00 worth of wrapping paper to put underneath the Christmas tree. Those little feet now wear panty hose & fashion boots."

"Little hands that used to break the piggy bank to get 59 cents to buy a Christmas gift, now hold credit cards that are good in any store in town."

"We'll have a good Christmas this year," she wrote. "We'll eat too much. We'll mess up the living room & throw the warranties in the fire by mistake. We'll put bows on the dog's tail. We'll take bites out of cookies... We'll listen to Christmas songs, & have a good Christmas."

"But, Lord, what I wouldn't give to bend over just one more time & receive some toothpicks held together by library paste & to hear the chimes ring just one more time."

B. You see, our homes are important because it is at home that we not only talk about love & trust, but we learn to live with love & trust.

It is at home where we don't just talk about “peace & good will to men” but we learn to live it. Then our children will go out into the world as ambassadors of peace. But if they don't learn peace, they'll go out into the world angry & upset at themselves & everyone else.