Anniversaries, birthdays, even seasonal holidays are just days on the calendar for me and my husband. Often, it’s well wishes from friends in ecards, texts and on Facebook notifying us that a reason to celebrate has arrived. The only exception I’m happy to say is Christmas.
Let us return to 2014…
I sat on the board of directors of an ecumenical center in Long Island called the Parish Resource Center. It helps church lay people do tasks assigned to them. Lead a bible study, teach a Sunday school class, run a vacation bible school. Whatever help they needed, they could come to PRC for help. Anyway, many of Long Island’s tree farms host huge tree lighting displays which draw hundreds of people. As a fundraiser in 2014 the PRC decided to do a mini-tree display. Staff and center subscribers created inventive trees to raffle off as gifts and home decor. Some were quite seasonal with angels, stars, bows and berries. Some were thematically fun with Santas and a moose. One was practical making a baby-items tree to celebrate the birth of the Christ child. I took pictures back to my church in Paterson, NJ so my members could buy tickets for the trees they wished to win. Lugging the winning trees in shopping bags on the Long Island Railroad and New Jersey Transit trains is a fond Christmas memory.
Fast forward to 2017…
In 2017 I retired and moved to Albuquerque. My first Christmas was warm and wonderful. On my side of town, the sun melts any snow away by noon just like Camelot. My neighbors decorated their yards with large blow-up figures and inventive light displays. I thought about how I might decorate for the holiday. I went to a Christian bookstore in search of gifts for family and came across a series of handmade angels made by a shut in from one of the local churches. She was selling them on consignment. What lovely decorations for a tree. I thought. But as I shared earlier my husband and I aren’t big holiday celebraters. We’ve never even had a tree. In the past I’d hang garland decorated with instruments and bows. Maybe I could do the same with these angels. But then I remembered the PRC’s mini-tree festival and thought, “Why not?” I can buy a mini-tree and put these lovely angels on them. I bought them all. The bookstore also had glass angels. My spirit soared. I’d buy them too and make a mini-angel tree.
Not only did I create the tree, but I joined my neighbors in decorating the whole house and my yard as well.
When Christmas comes around, I can’t wait to pull out my decorations and get creative. I create wreaths and Christmas villages and put nativity displays all over my house. I now have five mini trees that take over our dining room table every year: a mini tree displaying the tiny ornaments from a Metropolitan Museum of Art advent calendar, two more dedicated to our pets and famous pets from the White House. I also created a Kwanzaa mini tree with ornaments I’d bought way back when I was in seminary but never displayed. And a Christmas village that occupies half our living room floor.
As I look back on this decorating tradition, I realize how being creative has revived the spirit of Christmas for me. As a minister my focus during Advent and Christmas was to make sure everyone else enjoyed the season. Thus, developing services and activities for others often meant I never stopped to take time for myself. Now my decorating allows me to get into the spirit of the season and rediscover its joys for myself.
Whatever holiday you celebrate - Diwali, Hannukah, Yule, Christmas or Kwanzaa - I hope some tradition enables you to be filled with the meaning of that celebration and to carry that spirit with you into the new year.
Michal Scott is the steamy historical romance pen name of Anna Taylor Sweringen, a retired United Church of Christ and Presbyterian Church USA minister. Inspired by the love mystics of Begijn, Audre Lourde and bell hooks, Anna seeks to write romance that can be simultaneously spiritual and steamy. She loves writing historical romance to give insight into black love and resilience in the African American experience in the US. Besides steamy historical romance, she writes inspirational and sweet romance as Anna Taylor and second chance ghost mystery romances as Anna M. Taylor. Sign up for Michal's newsletter so she can keep in touch with you: https://mailchi.mp/106e6b05cdfe/michal-scotts-newsletter
Michal has Christmas-setting short stories in two of Delilah Devlin’s Boys Behaving Badly anthologies. The latest, "Take Me To The Water," is available in Silver Soldiers which came out in 2023. The first, "The $5.00 Kiss of Life," came out in First Response back in 2019.
