Christmas

Well, here it is Christmas! I'm looking forward to spending time with my family. My sons and grandsons will be coming this weekend. We will be having our traditional Christmas Eve celebration (which includes opening the presents!) at Cindy's house in Meno, Oklahoma. That house use to belong to my Grandma and Pa LeCrone, so there are lots of good Christmas memories there.

On Christmas Day we will be going to Church. After Church we will have a Christmas dinner at my Mom's place. One of the traditions that arose with my boys was the tradition of Christmas stockings. My wider family (on the LeCrone side) always opened the presents on Christmas Eve. When my boys were born TJ and I wanted them to have something to open on Christmas morning, so the stocking tradition was born. On Christmas mornings Mikey and Miles would wake up to find their stockings filled with fun but inexpensive things: Candy, Apples, Oranges, pencils and pens, small toys, and things like that. Now that we have added a daughter-in-law and two grandsons, there are seven stockings that are hung up awaiting whatever "Santa" might bring.

I have some wonderful, warm memories of Christmases as a child. I can remember celebrating Christmas on the LeCrone farm south of Helena, Oklahoma. I vaguely remember a Christmas there when I was three or four. When I was five, I remember getting a toy gun and a pair of "moon shoes" that bounced when you wore them. I bounced around the farm shooting invisible outlaws from space. There weren't too many kids my age around the farm in the early sixties. My sister Cindy was still a baby. I had a lot of fun playing with my cousin Teddy who was a year younger than me. I well remember the time on the farm when Teddy peed on the electric fence. He got a whole new perspective on things that day. We used to have some great adventures exploring the farm and pretending we were cowboys. Sadly, Teddy passed away on Christmas day in 1994.

My aunt Linda was only eight years older than me and she would play with me sometimes. I still remember when Pa got the first television set. They were a long way from any TV stations and so he had to put up a large antenna on the top of the house. Before he got it put up it was laying in the yard. Linda and I hooked ropes to it and pretended it was a team of horses, pulling our stagecoach through the west.

One of my favorite Christmas memories was when we lived in Weslaco, Texas. I was ten or eleven. I begged for months for a Daisy BB Gun. On Christmas, Mom and Dad decided they'd have some fun and switched the names on the gifts for Cindy and me. But we must have had some kind of insight, because when they handed those gifts to us we promptly exchanged them with each other before we tore them open. We just knew. Man, I had some great fun with that BB gun. However, I did shoot Cindy at least twice with it. My bad.

I also remember the time when Cindy got the Suzy Homemaker Oven. Even then, so many years ago, she could cook. She would get so mad at me when, after she'd slaved all day over a hot oven, I'd devour her entire Suzy Homemaker cake in about two seconds. She wanted everbody to have a bite of her luscious goodies, but I would eat an entire cake or pie in two bites. My bad, again.

One Christmas memory that always makes my family laugh happened not too long ago. Every year during the Christmas season I would take my guitar and a few volunteers and go to the local nursing home to sing Christmas carols to the old folks. One year the volunteers that came with me included my Dad and my brother Davy and most of the rest of my family and a pretty good sized group from Church. As the old folks assembled for the carolling and as I started to get out my guitar, one old lady in a wheelchair began to heckle me.

"What's that?" she asked.

"It's my guitar," I replied.

"You're not going to play that, are you?"

"Yes, Ma'am!" I reply gleefully, "We're going to sing Christmas carols."

"Please don't," she says.

"Why not? Don't you want to hear some Christmas music?"

"Not from you," she replies.

"But it's Christmas music," I try to reason.

"For the love of God, put that thing up," she says, gesturing at the guitar.

I start tuning up the guitar and try to ignore her. But she won't be ignored. She starts getting louder and louder.

"Please stop that! No one here wants to hear that noise!"

My Dad and my brother are now laughing at me.

"Oh, God, make him stop!"

I strike a chord on the guitar and the old lady screams out, "Dear God! What have I done to deserve this torture?"

Dad and Davy have doubled over in laughter.

"Pleeeeeeeease Jeeeeeesus!" she screams, "Make this torment stop!"

Dad and Davy are now crying, they are laughing so hard. The rest of the Church group and my family are having a great time at my expense.

Finally a nurse came and rolled my 100 year old heckler away so the singing could commence.

When it comes to sensory bombardment, you can't do better than a Christmas in New Mexico. Some of my favorite Christmases were when I worked at Central United Methodist Church in Albuquerque. The Church would have four or five different Christmas programs on Christmas Eve, ending up with a Midnight service. This involved a lot of labor. I had a big crew working for me that would change settings for every program. When my boys got old enough, they would come and help me work these services. There was something amazing about walking out of that old church at 2 a.m. on a cold Christmas morning and driving home (which was 40 miles away) through a quiet and still New Mexico night. The sky would exhibit a clarity rarely seen as the stars shone with a brightness that seemed impossible. The luminarias (or farolitos) lined the drives and walks of the homes, awaiting the coming of the Christ Child and lighting His way. The scent of pinon pine burning in the fireplaces of the adobe homes, warming the hearts of those within, was intoxicating. We would sing Christmas carols all the way home, my tired boys and me. And when we got home TJ would have hot chocolate waiting for us. Then we'd go to bed and sleep that peaceful sleep that comes when all is well. In the morning there would be neat stuff in the stockings and toys to play with.

Above all else, Christmas is a message. Christmas tells us that no matter what is happening in our lives or in the world, that all will be well. The incarnation of Christ is not only the hope, but the assurance that we are headed not for ultimate disaster, but for ultimate peace. The truth of that ultimate peace awaits each of us deep in our own hearts. And as we experience it personally, we also know for certain that it must be shared. And the sharing of that message of peace is truly joy to the world!