🎄My 2020 Christmas Wish 🎄

One year, during a very difficult time in my life, I didn’t have the heart to drag out my Christmas ornaments. What I did have was a tree in the corner and an eight month old child who loved sparkling things and who deserved a happy first Christmas. I strung white lights and decorated the tree with heart-shaped cinnamon ornaments and homemade gingerbread cookies. 

While my life has improved a hundredfold since then, I still mingle ribboned gingerbread with my collection of more traditional ornaments — paper máche angels, gifts and memorabilia from places I’ve visited, ornaments made by children’s hands, or decorated with children’s faces and children’s scrawls. As for the ribboned gingerbread, there’s a figure for each member of my family, including a gingerbread reindeer to honor Smudges, my dog.

When the time comes to drag the tree into the woods behind my house, I leave the gingerbread nestled in the branches for the squirrels, birds, and perhaps some other creeper or crawler that I’d rather not think about. I don’t enjoy packing Christmas away, but it does gladden my heart, as Bob Cratchit  might say, to think of outside friends sharing my Christmas feast. 

A few days ago, one of my children snipped a bit of newly hung gingerbread.  I flashed back to decades ago when this child, then a toddler, did the very same thing. How far we’ve come, I thought. How lucky we are. 

This year there are many families struggling as I once struggled, many families with barely heart enough to celebrate the holidays. My wish for them is that the coming days bring even the briefest moment of light, and that in 2021, their lives and the lives of each of us improve a hundredfold.