I love everything about Christmas except Christmas trees!     You take a perfectly good tree, once growing joyously, happily, exuberantly with its other tree buddies in the north country, hack it down (or someone does it for you for which you pay a truly exorbitant price) and set it a holder in your living room and watch it molt for the length of time the poor thing sits there.     Dry, brittle needles fill your house and you don’t get the last one successfully vacuumed until sometime around the next Thanksgiving.    You pray and hope that nothing electrical will set the thing off and burn your house down.   Ah, but our activities with the tree have only begun.   Now we search attic, garage and shed for last year’s tree accessories (definition, lights that don’t light, ornaments so old they shatter in your hand, and other highly inflammable treasures), which upon putting on said tree cause innumerous needle wounds in your hands.     Some years ago, thinking in error that I could settle a lifetime of trees with an artificial one, I bought a tall, very thin, plastic tree  – and act which sent our four children out of the house permanently.     I heard one of our daughters say to one of her sisters via phone just last night, while commenting on this year’s version,  ”Well, thank God, at least it’s not that old plastic tree!”     (I kinda liked that thin tree.    It was so narrow you could clean out clogged plumbing with it.)   This year’s tree, the 2008 model,  was one of those that looked great as long as every light in the house was turned off for it did have various and sundry colored lights unceremoniously draped over it which sans any other source of illumination had a sort of Picasso-primitive appearance.     Our tree could well have been the object of an Andy Warhohl painting.     Now in a few hours I will remove the tree from the house, distributing pine needles into the carpets, furniture, and, I suspect, even in the refrigerator whey they will embed in what’s left of our Christmas ham, causing us to spit needles until Easter.     Now don’t accuse me of being a Scrooge, bah-humbug-type, person for I am not.     I love Christmas.    I even enjoy shopping (as long as I can finish it within a one-hour time span).      I do like outdoor lighting at this time of year.    Especially on other people’s houses.    Our neighbor to the north had beautiful outdoor lights this year.   I thought about putting a sign up in our front yard that read, “See our Christmas lights in the yard just north of us.”      Darlene didn’t think the sign would spawn friendly neighborhood relationships.

But despite the freakish tree, Christmas day itself was delightful.   Quiet.   Peaceful.    We had “family Christmas” earlier in the month before the kids and grandkids scattered across the planet.   Only our youngest daughter Darla was with us, along with her darling new puppy named “Foxie.”    Well, she kinda looks like a fox – same color, ears, etc.    Only her snout is not long and narrow like a fox’s – more blunt.     I must say I had a delightful time playing with her most of the day.     We no longer have our hairless cat (Shammi) since I gave him to one of the church secretaries who just loved him.     So Foxie was a pleasure.   You should know by now that I love animals.    Only I like wild ones better than domestic ones.   

This year our family drew names, just one gift for each family member.    And there was a cost limit!    Well, except for Darlene.     That’s always a special deal to me.     I know she’ll love the vacuum cleaner and dust mop.    (Just kidding.)    Highlight of Christmas Day is always gathering in the front room, opening either Matthew or Luke, and reading the story of Jesus’ birth.     Having been in that old Bethlehem stable so many dozens of times over the years, the place where the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, my mind releases scores of memories of the sights, sounds and aromas of that little town.     

My thanks to all our church staff who did so many things so well over this Christmas season – the 18th annual Christmas Keyboard Festival, the decorations (yes, EVEN the magnificent tree – ESPECIALLY the tree) and the Louie pageant last Sunday.     It was a fabulous December.    I have watched Dickens’ Christmas Carol everytime I could find it on TV again this year.     Tiny Tim’s closing line is always a heart-stopper to me:   “May God bless us – every one.”     That’s my prayer for you as well, dear friend.    May you have a blessed New Year.  

Now….I have to get that molting tree out of our house…..”

Often on my journeys in cyberspace, I check out my home town of Sioux City, Iowa, located on the extreme northwest corner of Iowa.    Three states meet there: Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota.     Well, yesterday it was a high of 3 degrees, according to the Web and the temp dropped to -1.     Even though 55 years have passed since I lived there, I still remember those cold, frigid, icy winters.     We didn’t have school busses where I lived so in nice weather I rode my bike and in winter I walked (yes, Virginia  up-hill – both ways!)    By the time I’d get to school, I’d look like an iceberg.    

I don’t miss that cold weather, but I have warm memories.   Very warm.    I loved my parents, I enjoyed our tiny 800 square foot house, I had a bunch of school chums and I was already broadcasting on WNAX radio.    Our church was the highlight of my life though.     During World War II, it was the largest church in our denomination within a three or four state area.    I have pictures of hundreds of folks congregating on Sundays there.     There aren’t many who attend the little church any longer.  Sad story.    In my new book GODCAST, (available in bookstores everywhere – and Amazon, plug, plug, plug!) I mentioned that sad state of affairs in my old church home.     I wrote, “Recently I drove by it.   A chain-link, locked fence surrounds the structure.    The grounds are covered by weeds.   The site frankly broke my heart and, thinking about it, I wrote these lyrics for a song prompted in my thinking by Joseph Rapozo’s pop song, ‘There Used To Be A  Ballpark Right Here.’    

“And there used to be a church house / in my childhood and my teens / where the people sang and worshiped with a joy I’ve seldom seen / and the place was filled with wonder / from the platform to the rear / yes, there used to be a church house right here.     And there used to be a vision of those things God wanted done / now there’s no one left attending of those saints, not even one / and the sky has got so cloudy when it used to be so clear / and the glory left so quickly one year.    Now the children try to find it / and they can’t believe their eyes  for the old folks don’t remember so no one really tries / but I’ll never stop recalling / those days still seem so near / when there used to be a church house right here.”

You know, as cold as the weather was in my old home town yesterday….this story is much colder.    I pray such a thing never happens to your home church.