Christmas Carols...

Last year I wrote a Christmas letter to my children telling them about my childhood experiences with traditional Christmas carols and now that the season is once again upon us, my mind travels back...these traditional tunes hold such graphic imagery for me...as a child, particularly one given to too much pondering, these songs were my church. They conveyed the message of Christ-like love and acceptance and non-judgement to me and it was not unusual for me to hum the tune of The Little Drummer Boy under my breath sitting alone on the fence in my back yard in the middle of May. I couldn't separate Mother Mary from the baby Jesus in these songs...She held a place of reverance and awe in my little mind...this magnificent mother in charge of a baby God...I would try to wrap my head around that concept for hours it seemed...a big guy in red passing out gifts was just icing on the cake, I don't believe I ever confused or connected the two...but my best memory was of Silent Night...because, on really cold and snowy nights in the Midwest, I could kneel down at the bottom of our large livingroom picture window and look out into our backyard, and while I sat there rocking, looking into the snowy night, I believed that Mary was out there, just out of sight, rocking baby Jesus, and we would rock together...and I'm still rocking...