Canciones de navidad y de las antepasadas

I am sitting, typing and looking out at the overcast Arizona December sky, listening to music about a mother, birth, and a babe. This is a story about people who are said to have lived two thousand years ago. Imagine, a story that is so old and told in so many forms, music, sacred text, stories, about something so humble and dismissed by most of history, as the birth of a child? This particular CD has men's and women's voices and combined they are lovely, leading me to believe that Voltaire was on to something when he talked about the best of all possible worlds. Do we have sexual reproduction so male and female voices could combine in such an inspiring and lovely fashion?

I remember many different Christmases. I remember when I got a Chinese garden as a child. It was tiny and my only gift, as we did not have much money that year. But I loved that little garden. It was soil and seeds on a plate. There was a tiny mirror to create a tiny lake, and a little temple, and a gate into the garden. I spread out the soil and carefully planted and watered the seeds and it grew into a magic garden, so I enjoyed that Christmas for almost an entire year. It did end, however, and I realized that lovely things end and you enjoy the fleeting time you have with them, that they gift you with their presence.

The next Christmas I remember was the first year I was married. We were living in student housing in a graduate school. Again, we had little money. I remember getting a sweater and skirt from my new husband, which I loved and wore everyday until someone asked if I had any other clothes (I do this all the time, forgetting about other things I can wear when something I have is comfortable). We decorated the tree with bows we had saved from our wedding gifts. It was a lovely tree. I got a pair of snow boots from my new mother in law and I carried those boots around for years, until I finally encountered some snow and could use them.

The next Christmas was the year my daughter was born in Bogota, a city to which we had recently moved, and was a tiny baby. It was that year that the Christmas story began to become more personal. I could appreciate in a new way, traveling when you were 9 months pregnant, giving birth in a stable, having an infant to care for, one whose very existence depended on your continued existence. Risk taking was no longer quite so interesting.

There were many Christmas inbetween then and now. My son was born in Spain and we celebrated the dia de los 3 reyes magos. My daughter sat on the King's lap at Corte Ingles. We made 14 elaborate ginger bread houses for orphan children. So many Christmasses have passed by. The next Christmas that has stuck in my mind was the year my father died. We were living in Quito and I went to a reception at the US Embassy. That was an unusual thing for me to do as I was an immigrant in Ecuador and no longer really thought of myself as a North American. For some reason they decided we would all stand up together and sing Christmas carols. I remember standing in the back row next to the tall and elaborate tree (certainly not an Ecuadorian Christmas tree with their sad branches falling limply at the ends). I was struck by how beautiful the songs were, how my father had loved them, and how he would no longer hear them. Tears poured from my eyes and I pretended to sing, opening my mouth. I am sure people noticed and kindly ignored me.

Now, I will have a Christmas with three grandsons. This will be a joy to observe.