My family celebrated Christmas today, starting with presents this morning, then turkey and mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing and canned cranberry jelly and rolls and Frog Eye Salad (all my favorites), then a long afternoon of hanging out together, telling stories, and playing games. Joel and I left a few minutes before everyone else, because we needed to go home and change clothes before the Christmas Eve service at church. Liv told me that it's not a church day, and I told her that the Christmas Eve service is the best church day of the whole year.
I have always loved the Christmas Eve service at church. One of the many stories that were told about the dinner table today was about how much baby Kate loved Dad. After her mom and dad and brothers, Grandpa was her next favorite person. In contrast, no matter what Mom did, Kate cried whenever she looked at Grandma, and Mom could only hold her if Kate didn't see that it Grandma. It must have been 2009 when Kate got really excited about seeing Grandpa up on the stage at the Christmas Eve service, enough to keep calling out to him, so much that he came down off the stage and got her and brought her up on stage with him for the final song.
Before that, there was a Christmas Eve was James was still a very small baby, and Dad held him for the entire message at the Christmas Eve service, giving us all a great visual, as we imagined Jesus coming as a baby. I remember Patrick and Tanya giving themselves a little pep talk about how the baby would be fine with Dad, and that Dad had plenty of stability to hold the baby through the whole service. It was 2006, and we were all thankful that Dad's stroke hadn't taken him away from us.
There was that time that the worship team, lead by Steve Melton, played "Silent Night", with a surprise twist. It started out traditional, then turned into an upbeat rock song, representing how that night in Bethlehem was anything but silent! It was loud and chaotic with all the hotels filled up with people who were in town for the census.
Another Christmas Eve, Dad taught about the symbolism behind Christmas tree decorations, like what each color represents about Jesus. My family decorated the tree with lights, gold garland, and ornaments of many colors.
We had a candlelit Christmas Eve service in 1995. Real candles. Real flames. Really nervous Dad. No one burned down the church, but Patrick and Clayton took the papers intended to keep candle wax from dripping on your hands, and put them on their noses instead. I have proof.
Our church is casual. My dad wears a tie about half the time, but it's rare to see anyone else wearing a tie. Some parents have given their boys the dress rule that they're not allowed to wear a shirt with writing on it to church, that it has to have a collar or stripes. Recently one of the classes received trophies on the stage, and every boy was wearing a shirt with stripes. Jeans and t-shirts and flip flops are perfectly acceptable. Girls under the age of eight are the only group excluded from being questioned when dressed fancy at church. Otherwise the rest of us will ask you where you're going after church. On more than one occasion, my parents have stopped home on a Sunday afternoon, to change INTO their nice clothes for a wedding or funeral. So when you look around the church on Christmas Eve, and see more dresses and ties and red and sparkly than usual, it's special.
I always loved hanging out with my friends at the Christmas Eve service. We would all be dressed up and excited for the next day. Years may pass, things may change, but appreciating friends remains the same. I miss catching up with James Melton when we were both on break from college. I love having interesting conversations with Autumn, like tonight's speculation that time is passing so quickly that we might be in a parallel universe. I love when I get to see Clayton and Brad and Tori at the Christmas Eve service. I would say that Clay doesn't use paper candle holders for nose gear anymore, but in all fairness, we have never had another candlelit service, so none of us can really know what he'd do now.
But long before the Billy Graham Chaplains showed up to the Christmas Eve service unexpectedly... long before Tim proposed to Joanna outside the church late one Christmas Eve night... long before we looked forward to fudge from the Rinaldis... long before my parents became grandparents... there was the night that the YMCA changed the locks.
Long ago, in a Calvary Chapel far far away... our church met in a YMCA. The church rented the building on Sunday mornings, from 8:00am til noon. We had to be out of the building by noon, and often times the entire small church would go out to lunch at Taco Bell when the clock stuck twelve. Baptisms in the huge pool were a highlight, but nobody liked the tedious chore of carrying chairs and speakers up to the second floor auditorium. The YMCA had been rented for Christmas Eve service. I remember going to church with Dad, and I remember being at the house with Mom. So we must have all gone to church together when the discovery was made. Sometime between Sunday morning and Christmas Eve, the YMCA had changed the locks. Dad's key didn't work and everyone from church was on their way to the Christmas Eve service. Dad made the quick decision that we were going to move the Christmas Eve service to our house, and Mom took us back home for a quick whirlwind of straightening up, while Dad remained in the cold, telling everyone to come to our house instead. You will remember that this was before cell phones.
More and more and more people came. The church that seemed small in other settings now filled my parents' house to standing room only. What seemed at first like a disaster turned into the most memorable Christmas Eve service of all time. We all sang carols, Lenora played the violin, and we remembered another busy crowded night, when God sent His only Son as a baby, to be born among barn animals and spend His first night asleep on the hay in a feeding trough.
Jesus' birth did not happen at a convenient time for Mary and Joseph, but a necessary time to fulfill prophecy. As we celebrate this Christmas, may we not remember Jesus' birth only at our convenience, but may we see how necessary He is to our lives every day. For it is not His birth that makes "God and man reconciled", but His death on the cross to pay for our sins and the fact that He rose from the dead and now lives forevermore. We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Our sin has earned us death and Hell, but God offers us the free gift of salvation and Heaven through Jesus alone. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. If you have never opened that free gift from the Lord, please know that today is Christmas, and that gift is waiting for you.
Take the abundant life, for eternity and for every day living.
Don't leave it unopened at the Tree.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!! Thank you for sharing in my week of Christmas memories, thank you for encouraging me to write, and thank you for adding so many of your memories. May the Lord bless you this Christmas!
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