I’m awake. Everybody is sleeping off their late night or midnight mass.  I am drinking coffee, watching the snow fall and thinking about Christmas.

One Christmas eve, many years ago a friend drove me home after church . It was a poor poor sparse Christmas. Gifts were a luxury we did not have. My friend had a box in his car from the church, a gift to our family. It had oranges, meat, some boxed food and a few gifts in it.  I remember walking through the snow to the house. He carried the box through the streetlights glow, and I was feeling somewhat ashamed that we were the poor people of the church.  But I was grateful also.  Mostly I was grateful that there would now be some gifts under the tree. We could pretend, even for a minute, that we were just like everybody else.  The only thing I remember receiving that year was a pair of nasty crocheted slippers that were so slippery it seemed to have their bottoms dipped in crisco. But they were something. 

My children don’t worry about christmas gifts or holiday meals.  We have above and beyond what we ever deserve or need.  They aren’t over indulged but they certainly are not in need. The irony is, as I pick out the one or two things our kids receive for Christmas and as I think back to our own meager christmases I realize that I was not in want either.  I had all I needed and even some things I wanted.  My house was clean and tidy. There was almost always food; albeit not always things I loved to eat but there was always bread, potatoes, milk, eggs and some sort of off brand wanna be cereal. 

I think of the Christ child. I think of His mother. How much she must have wanted to have something, anything, to give him other than life itself. And yet. He had everything he needed also. 

It’s a good day.