Christmas

Posted on by Jane Carlile Baker, Author, Editor, Teaching Consultant

I wonder what Jesus would think of Christmas in California circa 2011. He wouldn’t care that it isn’t snowing in most of the state. It probably didn’t snow in Israel. He wouldn’t need to hang lights or write Christmas cards. He might buy presents, but probably not any designer names. Maybe he’d just jazz up the eggnog. He’d tell me to come sit down and stop making pumpkin roll until I feel like I’m going to drop. He’d talk to me about God and Heaven, and what my Papa is doing these days. Would he like the goofy Christmas songs, like Granma Got Run Over by a Reindeer? I do. Maybe he would, too. He’d like it that sometimes people are nicer to each other, if they’re not trying to get a good deal on something.
Maybe if I realize that Jesus is doing all this with me, I will do it differently than I would have otherwise. What does he think is important in this week before Christmas? He probably appreciates the real story being told and I will find a way to do that.  Not that he doesn’t enjoy the Santa stuff, I don’t know. It just doesn’t matter as much. He wants me to see each person I meet as someone I can treat as I would treat him were he visible. Since he chose to be born in a stable in a little town to people of no renown, I think I’ll hang around with those who are just folks, and I’ll love them, whatever that turns out to mean. Like giving up my well made plans to just be with them. Maybe we’ll sing some songs together and laugh and share.  Maybe we’ll avoid arguing, and go for peace. I’m just thinking out loud, well in letters, here.
Jesus, your birthday is amazing. After all these years even people who swear you don’t exist get different at Christmastime. Thank you for showing us how life should really be, and that there’s a side to it that we can’t even see. Thank you for giving up Heaven to help us understand God. Thank you for offering to live in our hearts if we will only just let you. I love you, and I love it when you tell me you love me too, in whatever ways you choose to do it. Please help me not to disregard that all that I have and am is because you gave them to me.
Happy birthday,
Jesus Christ, God with us

Published by Jane Carlile Baker, Author, Editor, Teaching Consultant

Jane has loved writing from the time she learned to hold a pencil. Her writing journey moved from that pencil to personal computers through the seventies, she edited for a hospital public relations department. The eighties found her owning a public relations business, publishing newspaper and magazine articles, and directing communications for a large church. In the nineties she published her first book and led critique groups and writers' workshops. In the twenty-first century she became a teaching consultant for the National Writing Project, published several more books, and began an editing business. Jane also loves raising chickens, dogs and alpacas, gardening, oil painting, swimming and hanging out with her family.

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