Too many times when I was a child, Christmas seemed to be about perfection. Perhaps it was a reaction to the uncertainty of circumstances—I grew up in the sixties with an Air Force officer father deployed in Vietnam—that made us try extra hard to keep Christmas. …
Mom was a tree fanatic, wielding strict control over the color, type, placement, and spacing of our family ornaments.
Tinsel was — well, let’s just say it was years before I was deemed trustworthy enough to follow my mother’s careful guidance and hang not one nor three, but exactly two tinsel strands on each carefully chosen branch. My grandfather’s particular arena for expressing the meaning of Christmas was in assuring that gifts my brother and I received were exactly equal in value.
If my guitar cost more than his bike; or his telescope, more than my stereo, you knew that before the last shred of wrapping paper was swept away, one of us would be called to the back yard for a benediction: your brother’s present cost more than yours.
Here’s the difference.
Merry Christmas. We kids never forgot the obligation our oft-absent father had placed on us, to make things easy for your mother while I am away. Constrained by love, we all tried, but still, the disappointment we felt when we failed to achieve the mark (or maybe, the Hall-mark?) was genuine.
The passing of years has softened memories, and love makes us gentle when recalling the way we were. I have come to believe that the mystery of Christmas is how divine grace, despite all evidence to the contrary, somehow sinks into our messy lives, not perfecting us, but honoring us, hallowing our becoming. And the gift we received once from the Child I now have been given by my own daughter.
Just before Christmas break, I drove my daughter over to the middle school so she could set up her harp for the holiday concert—her first performance as a member of the school orchestra.
Featured that evening were two bands, a chorus, a jazz brass ensemble, the advanced orchestra, and the beginning orchestra — fourteen violins, three violas , two cellos and one harp — all tuned to a different concert “A.”
From my place in the bleachers, I saw the orchestra conductor lean over and whisper something to my daughter, who shrugged, and then nodded. An hour and a half later, the announcement came: we have a special treat this evening. For the first time, our middle school orchestra features a harpist. Before the final number, she will play a Christmas solo.
The room, filled with hundreds of young musicians and their families, fell silent. The girl set her hands to the strings and began to play: silent night, holy night.
My eyes filled with tears as she moved through the song.
Holy infant so tender and mild. At the phrase sleep in heavenly peace, her hand, slick with nerves, slipped on the strings and struck the wrong chord. Imperceptibly to anyone but me, her hands shook, as if to throw off the bad notes. She tried again—once, twice, and finally, eons later, finished the song.
Straight backed, she sat through the final all-orchestra finale, and then, the concert was over. I went down to the floor of the gym where she was packing up her instrument.
Her eyes were full of unshed tears.
Lifting her chin, she glared at me and said, if you say I played well, I will never speak to you again. Words of congratulation died on my lips as I understood that my child required of me the gift of truth, not the illusion of perfection. I swallowed hard.
Next time you’ll do better, I said, and the tears spilled over.
I opened my arms, and she laid her head on my shoulder and cried. The sounds of excited voices and shouted Christmas greetings faded around us, and we were alone in a wilderness of painful truth, potent love, and the fragile possibility of beginning again.
Together, we walked out into the purple darkness, put her instrument into the trunk of the car, and drove home.
The gaudy pink lights of the mall winked and flared beside us, promising all manner of store-bought happiness — but around us, the night was dark and still, and the promise of Christmas was real.