CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

by Susan Stedman

In just over a year, I will be 60 years old. Wow, technically I knew this, but seeing it in black and white really makes it seem true. I don’t really believe it. I don’t know how I could be that old. I’m probably adding something wrong somewhere.

    The reason I know it can’t be true is how clear my memory is of the one activity I love to do most at Christmas Time. I’ve been doing this all my life, as long as I can remember. It was much easier when I was smaller. I try never to judge people, but I remember that we used to visit a lot of relatives during the month of December. No one knew about my litmus test back then, but I did it to everyone until they deemed me too old to be crawling on their floor. So, probably around the age of fifteen, I had to be more discreet. That doesn’t mean I stopped. I just stopped doing it when people were around.
    
    So, what is this terrible secret I hide that comes out every December? 

    I crawl under Christmas trees, lie on my back, and look up through the branches.

    Ornaments don’t fascinate me. It’s the lights that draw me to my Christmas addiction. And tinsel. Only because tinsel reflects the lights so that it seems like they are doubled or tripled in number. The best time to do it is when all the other lights are off in the house and only the twinkling, colored dots above me are visible.

    I don’t know how this began, nor why it is such a thrill for me, but twinkling lights have the power to hypnotize me. Not only on Christmas trees, but that is just where they grow thickest. I can lay there all night watching them and I get so much peace from doing it that I resent having to leave them.

    Maybe it’s because many people are on their best behavior at Christmas. Moms and Dads don’t argue so much. Brothers and sisters don’t fight over things because they get their own toys. Grand- parents aren’t sad because families come to see them and spend time at their houses. Christmas songs are on the stereo. Christmas shows are on tv.  

    Best of all, it is the time that we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Love abounds when we put Him first. Love and peace seem to come together as a holiday package and it doesn’t cost a thing to give that gift to someone. A friend, a neighbor, a stranger on the street. Everyone loves that Christmas Spirit. 

    I never thought much about it until this year but I realized that there is more to this than just my addiction to sparkly lights. I looked it up in the Bible and wasn’t surprised that I didn’t find anything about Christmas lights, but I did find the following verse from James 1:7.

    “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.”

    So this Christmas time, I recommend you lay down on your floor and back yourself up under your tree. While you look up at the light show, remember the Father of lights and His Christmas gift to the world, His son, Jesus.