Christmas stockings on the chalet hearth 

GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS PAST
Dec. 25, 2011

If I thought I would escape the ghosts of Christmas past by coming to this isolated mountain village, I was dead wrong. Every Christmas tune, greeting card, decoration, every kid (of any age) sledding down the hill next to my chalet, every one of the billions of snowflakes that fell this day evokes memories.

Christmas is built on tradition, on a story handed down for centuries, and traditions are created from memories. My remembrances come to mind in no particular order. I guess it’s whenever the Spirit brings them to life.

I walk into the Fireside Room, see and smell a giant Christmas tree, and there in living color is the memory of my late husband meticulously arranging lights. I enter the dining hall where an abundance of aromas tantalize the senses, and there’s my mother pulling a loaf of Christmas bread from the oven. I see the excitement of village children and I am seven years old, filled with eager anticipation. On Christmas morning the pastor reads, “In the beginning was the Word …” and I hear my father’s voice.

Nostalgia perhaps, yet it is what makes each Christmas richer than the one before. With more than sixty years of memories in my bank, I revel in this wealth of Christmases past. And now with this year come new experiences that I will savor in Christmases future:

 … Wearing a long dress over my snow boots to the Christmas Eve “feast,” a sumptuous dinner shared with 150-or-so people – many of them strangers who, by the end of the meal, were family.

 … Village children enacting Luke’s timeless story. Our youngest resident, six-month-old Benjamin, played the role of the Christ child as we sang “Silent Night.” We’d just gotten to “round yon virgin” when Benjamin’s face began to pucker, a sign of what was coming. At “so tender and mild” he was howling a boisterous descant to the congregation’s amusement. A stand-in doll, wrapped in swaddling clothes, took his place.

... The requisite fire crackling Christmas morning as I watched my chalet mates, most in their 20s, gratefully open gift packages from home. For some, this was their first Christmas away from home. My own occasional bouts of loneliness allowed me to empathize.

… Sitting next to a young woman at Communion Christmas morning. I noticed that her eyes were filling with tears, as were mine. She gazed at and touched her diamond engagement ring longingly. Her true love is on the other side of the state; mine is on the other side of life.

… Donning snowshoes and following the winding course of the outdoor labyrinth as a memorial to my husband. He would have celebrated his eightieth birthday today. I mused how the twists and turns of the labyrinth resembled the surprising turns of his remarkable life. Before I knew it, I’d reached the center and followed the path back to the beginning. Just like Christmas, the labyrinth journey ended too quickly – now another memory to keep.