Christmas Eve Day and I am running doing last minute errands with everyone else and their brother. (Groceries and the liquor store. I’ve got my priorities.) The supermarket was with packed with people, the lines at the checkout snaking around the store.
I got what I needed and was standing patiently in line when suddenly I could feel the love.
It seemed an unlikely place to encounter a tsunami wave of love, as I stood meekly between the gum and the racks of People Magazine, but there it was.
I could feel in a flash that all the hustle is really about love. We over spend, over shop and over clean in the hope that we will love and be loved in return.
Christmas really is all about love. (I can’t help thinking that Christ might agree.)
Sometimes I imagine that I can hear what people are thinking. (Who knows, maybe I really can- in those illuminated moments.) But I swear, the lady in front of me was thinking, “If I get it right this time, maybe my mother will finally tell me she is proud of me.”
The big guy behind me in the Patriots sweatshirt was thinking, “In Dad’s memory. This is the first year without him. It’s going to be tough for the family. A nice pork roast in his honor.” And as a happy little afterthought, “Go Pats. 10th year in the row to clinch the AFC East. Bam!” Give the guy his due, ok? It is a happy Holiday tradition for us New Englanders.
There was the young mother, wanting her little kids to feel loved, cared for and cherished. And the older mother, whose kids are home from college, tempting them to spend time with her with homemade lasagna.
Despite the hype, the bills, the hurly burly and the Hallmark channel schmaltz fest, the Holidays speak to a deeper longing we all have.
To belong and be part of a loving tribe.
To give and receive love, which sometimes looks like food, money or gifts, but is really the currency of the heart.
We share a common need to be noticed, listened to, and honored and to have our unique talents and our specialness admired.
We desire to have our heartfelt contributions to family, work and country recognized and celebrated and to be showered with gratitude for the loving actions we take everyday. (The house is clean, the food is prepared and the presents glowing under the tree. Say THANK YOU. We all need to hear this so much more often than we do.)
Maybe we also need to have our pain, loneliness and heartache acknowledged and soothed. We have had losses this year and there are people missing from our table. We have suffered defeats and humiliations so we need to know we are still loved, still welcome – still worthy of love, forgiveness and dignity, especially when it’s not picture perfect.
And maybe on Christmas Eve, we need to be snuggled and fed and tucked in with a glass of milk and a bedtime story, even if we just turned 84 years old.
I think the Grinch had it right. What if Christmas means a little bit more?
And here is my love for all of you, my darlings. Merry Christmas!
