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Dec 24, 2000
The Night Before
Christmas Eve is here again, conjuring a Holiday out of the darkness.The whole thing hinges on a new dawn, full of mysterious gifts, deposited while we sleep.
But what of the night itself?
I’ve wondered lately, for this Christmas is different. Coming so close on the heels of my father’s death, it is indelibly marked by that event.
I would honor the Holidays, and I have a personal tradition of making a Christmas card, but it’s been a little harder this year. In searching for the theme, I thought about the nether side of Christmas, of how it’s babe is born to die, and how that’s not much mentioned. That’s for another day, no doubt, but it haunts the holiday no less.
Haunting is for the night.
There is the new dawn, and the triumph of light, and the splendor of illumination.
But also there is Night.
Beside the songs of joy and celebration, the cannon of Christmas Carols offers an alternative tradition of quiet, pensive night songs; lullabies, in fact, which acknowledge the mixed implications of the occasion. To these I turned for inspiration, finding a confluence of images and feelings.
For I thought of Mary, singing her child to sleep, fearing for his future.
And I thought of how children do not want to sleep, least of all on Christmas Eve, and yet, they always do.
And how it’s only then, in the unwilled moment of drooping lids, that the anticipated event occurs.
And I thought of my father, dozing by day, fighting to be present, yet restless at night, waking repeatedly, hoping for one more morning.
A different sort of anticipation.
And I thought how easy it is for me to sleep.
In middle life, without the nagging chafe of youth or age, I do not require lullabies.
All of which makes for a Christmas card that’s not quite celebratory, but is what the Holiday has brought me this year. I thought of tacking on some sort of uplifting final stanza, but it didn’t seem right. Even our most joyous holidays are deeply serious at the core. Our needs will be addressed insofar as we can express them.
That's prayer.
The rest is tinsel.
Anyway, here’s the card.
Cheerier next year, I promise.
Sleep tight, and no peeking.