And May All Your Christmases Be White

The trees were bare, leaves having long since fluttered from their home above on to the cold, equally barren looking ground. The air had that particular chill in it that made fires feel extra cozy, and sweaters extra nice, and hot cups of wonderful herbal teas (especially Celestial Seasonings Dessert Teas–which I have long since run out of, alas!)a daily necessity more than ‘just because’.  But dark as the sky had grown at times, and chilly as the air had felt, it only rained, and rained and rained some more. But in my mind, I was in another place, another time, with snowflakes swirling around my upturned face, making me feel as if I was really floating, higher, and higher and higher into a steel gray sky. Blink. I was back in our little house here in North Idaho. And it was still raining just as hard as it ever had.

But then the morning came when I flipped on the outdoor light in preparation for Scott’s early morning departure for work to find that rain had faded into white, and even yet, out of the darkness snowflakes were falling and making my world a wonderful, fluffy white. (At least for a little while!) It was that day, too, that I realized that Thanksgiving was almost here again. Somehow. Surely it hadn’t been over a year since my man asked me to be his bride? Blink. Wait, how could it be just a year ago. Longer, surely much longer ago than that.

One thing was sure, though. It was snowing at last, and as I stood there, admiring the way that God turns barrenness into beauty, a parade of memories began to march, or perhaps tumble through my mind, bringing alive the “old days” now past in of some of the Christmas Classics that cannot leave off from echoing through my memory’s hall.

It really does sometimes seem like yesterday, especially as these first snows of winter fall, that I danced  around the house with my brother and sister  while we sang a bit  of “Let it Snow” in anticipation of those first Alaskan snowflakes (though I wonder now that we weren’t singing something else- such as “snow, snow go away, come again some other day”, long as those winters felt sometimes!) and then  fell down on our backs on the lawn, laughing, and trying to catch the first snowflakes on our tongues.

Though snow usually fell long before Christmas, and often long before Thanksgiving, there was something about the snows before Christmas that seemed extra special then, and now even more so.  Those fires in the fireplace in my childhood home (fueled by wood that we’d spent the few months of summer gathering from our own acreage) are now replaced with fires in the pellet stove in my new living room, and yet the warm, glowing light remind me of those cozy home fires and I hear my brother’s voice all over again, singing as only he could do, about those chestnuts we never did get to roast on our open fires (and that I still dream of doing…some Christmas season, if and when I can find some chestnuts).  Jack-frost nipping at our noses and anywhere else he could nip (ever have your eyelashes freeze shut? I have!), and dressing like Eskimos (I wore a kuspuk quite often as a child) were reality for us, but somehow it was those chestnuts we always thought about.

I  can still  hear that particular crunch of dry, powder snow  as it is trampled underfoot, and feel the icy wind  biting at my nose and cheeks again as we walked from house to house around the neighborhood- and farther- keeping that beautiful tradition of caroling alive and sharing a little of our Christmastime joy with strangers.  I hear the Drummer Boy (Johnny Manthis, once again accompanied by my brother), and remember understanding for the first time what it meant to “give my best to Him” who was born to die so that I could live.

I still feel the chills down my spine and the threat of tears every time I hear it that I felt that first time I stood and heard the Hallelujah Chorus live in an old church in Anchorage as a 9 year old. Only now I  sing along, and imagine that in Heaven, the Angels must be singing too.

But while I think of the beautiful blessings remembered last Thanksgiving to this one just past, and while I write my Christmas greetings to the people near to my heart though scattered around this old earth,  and glance out my little window at the picture of my world- a world just now turning white, unlike the world of my childhood- it is Bing Crosby whose voice floats into my mind, and memory after memory of happy, carefree childhood white winter days come with it, when the snow was already quite deep, and  the only kind of Christmas I ever knew were  always white. I’m dreaming of a White Christmas.

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where the treetops glisten,
and children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow

Happy, beautiful, white Christmases. Days  filled with family, love, rejoicing and thankfulness for the gift of God’s Son to make our hearts “whiter than snow”. These were days to give, to share, to sing and be still and know Him. To hear the snowflakes fall, and the winter birds sing. Tree tops always glistened and once or twice, we did hear the sleigh bells ringing through the cold air and the snow crunching under horse foot, fulfilling a childish desire to really go sleigh riding. These are some of my heart’s happiest memories.

Thanksgiving is past now, and the air is even more chilly than before, and there is snow on the ground- and it seems to be here to stay. Yet, still through my mind the memories, and the songs echo keeping those memories of Christmases of the past fresh, and the happiness, that real joy that comes from sharing, and the reason why I always dream of “white Christmases” is alive just as it was when I was a child.

Life changes just as the seasons come and go. This year my siblings are far away, my family scattered like autumn leaves, married, expecting little ones, unable to make the trips to all be back together again.  It won’t be just like the Christmas times I’ve known before. It’ll be my first…away from home, but at home, where I’d rather be than anywhere else, at the side of the man I love more than anyone else in this world. I’m looking forward to creating our own memories to tuck into my treasure chest in Memory’s hall.

But I’m still dreaming of a White Christmas- not just a snowy, white Christmas,  but the kind of happiness that White Christmases always have been to my heart… a Christmas as filled with love and joy and thankfulness, with sharing, with quiet moments to soak in the reality of what the world somehow has commercialized into a mere shadow of what it ought to be… and somehow I think this Christmas will be more beautiful than any I’ve ever known.

I’m looking forward to a cozy fire, to the Christmas Greetings from friends and family that make every day cheery when I see them in a little (but growing!) line on our window sill, a happy home filled with the music of the season, a few special foods, and  lots of quiet moments truly seeking to grasp the ultimate gift ever given- our Savior, and to be still in our hearts and know Him.

It isn’t the gifts, it isn’t the food, it isn’t the place or the people, or the snow that make my Christmas White- though they make it happy indeed, and the memories even more beautiful and special- it is the simple joys and the happiness that comes from inside that will always be my white Christmas, no matter where I am, and even if I am all alone.

Whether you “celebrate” Christmas, Hanukkah or neither, from our home to yours…

May your days be merry and bright
And may all your Christmases be white.

God bless each of you this season, exceedingly, abundantly above all that you ask, think or even imagine. Happy White Christmas, this year and always.