Memories of Christmases Past

This week, as we've been preparing for Christmas, I haven't been able to stop myself from thinking of Christmases past. The memories are sweet, but my heart has felt a bit heavy as I've thought of them. Mostly, I suppose, because I wish that they didn't have to be only memories of Christmases past, but that they could also be thoughts of Christmases yet to come.

I've been thinking a lot of my Dad. His card was always the first I got in the mail (it would usually arrive by the Monday after Thanksgiving). So when another card was first I missed him. As I've been wrapping my gifts and putting them under the tree, I have thought about the many years he had me wrap the gifts he had purchased for my step mom. He went way over the to top spoiling her every year, which made for a big wrapping job. I've thought about the days when he would dress up as Santa Claus (the best Jewish Santa I've ever seen ;) ) and deliver turkeys to all the teachers in the school district -- I remember watching him get dressed in the Santa suit and stuff his not-so-jelly-belly with pillows.

I've thought about many of our family traditions. Each year, when we were little, we'd dress up and do a live nativity -- there were plenty of us to fill all of the roles including stable animals and an innkeeper who stood on the outside side of the front door. Dad was always in the audience. Another favorite traditon was reading a Christmas story each day during the month leading up to Christmas. As we ate breakfast each morning Dad would read to us. They were the same ones every year, read with the same voices and emotion. They were typical tear-jerker Christmas stories meant to emphasis the true meaning of Christmas and to remind us of how blessed we are.

This last Sunday I decided to share one of these stories (one that emphasised that we need to make room for Christ in our lives) with my Young Women at Church. As I read the words my eyes filled with tears. I could hardly make it through the story. I am sure my girls were thinking "Wow, Sister Buckley -- this cheesy story is really effecting you..." I could practically hear my Dad's voice reading the words. I couldn't help but think of Christmases past. Those stories never seemed to mean so much as they do this year.

I miss my Dad. This time of year makes me think of him a lot, I suppose because so much about Christmas has to do with family and traditions -- two things that meant the world to him.

Trouble at the Inn

For years now whenever Christmas pageants are talked about in a certain little town in the Midwest, someone is sure to mention the name of Wallace Purling. Wally’s performance in one annual production of the Nativity play has slipped into the realm of legend. But the old timers who were in the audience that night never tire of recalling exactly what happened.

Wally was nine that year and in the second grade, though he should have been in the fourth. Most people in town knew that he had difficulty in keeping up. He was big and clumsy, slow in movement and mind. Still, Wally was well liked by the other children in his class, all of whom were smaller than he, though the boys had trouble hiding their irritation if the uncoordinated Wally asked to play ball with them.

Most often they’d find a way to keep him off the field, but Wally would hang around anyway—not sulking, just hoping. He was always a helpful boy, a willing and smiling one, and the natural protector, paradoxically, of the underdog. Sometimes if the older boys chased the younger ones away, it would always be Wally who’d say, “Can’t they stay? They’re no bother.”

Wally fancied the idea of being a shepherd with a flute in the Christmas pageant that year, but the play’s director, Miss Lumbard, assigned him to a more important role. After all, she reasoned, the Innkeeper did not have too many lines, and Wally’s size would make his refusal of lodging to Joseph more forceful.

And so it happened that the usual large, partisan audience gathered for the town’s Yuletide extravaganza of the staffs and creches, of beards, crowns, halos and a whole stageful of squeaky voices. No one on stage or off was more caught up in the magic of the night than Wallace Purling. They said later that he stood in the wings and watched the performance with such fascination that from time to time Miss Lumbard had to make sure he didn’t wander onstage before his cue.
Then the time came when Joseph appeared, slowly, tenderly guiding Mary to the door of the inn. Joseph knocked hard on the wooden door set into the painted backdrop. Wally the Innkeeper was there, waiting. “What do you want?” Wally said, swinging the door open with a brusque gesture.

“We seek lodging.”

“Seek it elsewhere.” Wally looked straight ahead but spoke vigorously. “The inn is filled.”

“Sir, we have asked everywhere in vain. We have traveled far and are very weary.”

“There is no room in this inn for you.” Wally looked properly stern.

“Please, good innkeeper, this is my wife, Mary. She is heavy with child and needs a place to rest. Surely you must have some small corner for her. She is so tired.”

Now, for the first time, the Innkeeper relaxed his stiff stance and looked down at Mary. With that, there was a long pause, long enough to make the audience a bit tense with embarrassment.
“No! Begone!” the prompter whispered from the wings.

“No!” Wally repeated automatically. “Begone!”

Joseph sadly placed his arm around Mary, and Mary laid her head upon his shoulder, and the two of them started to move away. The Innkeeper did not return inside his inn, however. Wally stood there in the doorway, watching the forlorn couple. His mouth was open, his brow creased with concern, his eyes filling unmistakably with tears.

“Don’t go, Joseph,” Wally called out. “Bring Mary back.” And Wallace Purling’s face grew into a bright smile. “You can have my room.”

Some people in town thought that the pageant had been ruined. Yet there were others—many others—who considered it the most Christmas of all Christmas pageants they had ever seen.