This is the fourth Sunday in Advent, and Christmas is very near. My heart and soul are remembering so many past Christmases. CBS  brought back the beautifully captivating story of the Waltons on Christmas Eve story from 1971 in DVD form. I found myself remembering my family Christmases of many years ago and wondered what we, as a nation, have done with Christmas. Is the meaning of Christmas tinsel on the trees, lights hung around the house, how many presents we get, or how many times we sing Jingle Bells, Frosty the Snowman, and Baby, It’s Cold Outside? Or is the real heart-felt meaning of Christmas the caroling around our towns, the shared times of love together with our families, the crackling fire in the hearth, the beautiful wishes of love for everyone, friends and strangers, and the bells ringing in the church steeples, calling us to worship together as Christians on Christmas Eve?

Needing some last minute things from Walmart, I drove to the store, listening to Frank Sinatra sing a song from 1968 that asked the question, Whatever Happened to Christmas? I realized that people during the Great Depression had very little, and yet, they made do with so much less than we seemingly need for Christmas today. Though times were desperately hard, they had everything that they needed. They had love, integrity, compassion, and a faith that God would give them all they needed to survive the worst economic times in our history.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt became our  president, and he really cared about American citizens. Because he cared, we cared for each other. In fact, his Fireside Chats made us feel like we were part of his family. That, my friends, is what happened to Christmas. We have forgotten to care about everyone we come into contact with; we have forgotten to love one another.

Have we lost the true meaning of Christmas because we are reliant on things rather than personal relationships? In the Walton’s Christmas story, John Boy told the story of Christ’s birth to his siblings because his father was not home yet from the mining job he was working so hard at.  The family feared that something had happened to him as he made the fifty mile journey back to them. John Boy stressed that the real beauty of the manger scene was that the first creatures to see the new-born Jesus were the donkey and the sheep, stinky, dirty animals. When we allow Jesus into our lives, love abounds, not violence, hatred, lies, greed, or vitriol that seems to describe our nation today. Are we allowing those dirty, evil things to destroy the truth, the light, and the way of the real joy of Christmas, Jesus Christ?

How many of us smell stinky animals on Christmas Eve? How many of us, when our homes are filled with family members, would drop everything to open the door to a family asking for shelter and warmth and maybe something to eat? How many of us reach out to the homeless, the hungry, the lost? Are we so interested in the lights, the tinsel, the “Santa songs,” and what is under the Christmas tree, that we forget out there in the manger, out there in the cold, there is someone needing us, needing our love? The real meaning of Christmas is love and that Christ came down to us as a human being, so that we might love one another. He gives us Eternal life and the way to be better than ourselves, to be Christ-like. What will you do with this gift of the Child called Emmanuel?

For me, I yearn for the Christ Child; I yearn for the old Christmases when love was more important than all the glitter, all the things. Give me white snow covering the ground, a Christmas Eve service where I hear my mommy and grammy singing, Silent Night in Hungarian, hot chocolate by the tree, making Christmas cookies and candy with my mommy, seeing the love between my daddy and mommy as they sang carols together at home, and holding teddy bears as the sleigh drives up the mountain to daddy’s mountain church with fifty people waiting to hear his beautiful sermons. I yearn for the love of simpler times and holding my family in my arms. The only thing that matters at Christmas is unconditional love. Like the Walton’s story and the song, Whatever Happened to Christmas?, I yearn for the love of family, friends, neighbors, and more importantly, I yearn for the love that passes all understanding, the love of Jesus Christ.  And as old as Charles Dickens’, “A Christmas Carol,” is and a poor, crippled, little boy cries out, “God bless us, everyone!”

Anna Hartt