Christmas should leave no one out

SOUL FOOD

Six days before Christmas, there are no sugarplums dancing in my

head. There are sundry thoughts of Christmas humming through it

instead.

When someone asks if I have the Christmas spirit, they can mean

any number of things:

Have you succumbed to the urge to shop in a credit-ruinous way?

Are you caving in to the temptation to party from now clear to New

Year’s? Have you heard the angels sing?

Sale ads, greeting cards, Christmas movies and even some carols

make it sound like everyone is gearing up for the same celebration,

but the Christmas season can just as well have very little to do with

the holy day called Christmas.

There’s a world of difference between toasting with eggnog over

cookies and canapes and celebrating that moment when “the Word became

flesh and dwelt among us ... full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Last week, a friend told me about a book written by John Grisham

called “Skipping Christmas.” I haven’t read it yet, but I plan to.

It’s about a couple, Nora and Luther Krank, who wearied of their

no-holds-barred spending on Christmas: “$6,100 on Christmas ...

decorations, lights, flowers, a new Frosty, and a Canadian spruce ...

hams, turkeys, pecans, cheese balls and cookies ... wines and liquors

and cigars ... fruitcakes ... a cashmere sweater ... an ostrich skin

wallet that was quite expensive and quite ugly ... Perhaps a useful

item or two, but nothing much -- $6,100!”

Someone else gave me a Christmas story, a story circulating the

Internet.

It’s about a mother who vowed to make Christmas “a calm and

peaceful experience,” to cut back on card writing, baking, decorating

and overspending, yet who still found herself too exhausted to

appreciate the “true meaning of Christmas.” Until she goes to watch

her young son perform in a Christmas play.

At the end of the play, each child holds up a letter, which

together are meant to spell out “Christmas love.” But the child

entrusted with the letter “m” holds her letter upside down, so the

letters, instead, spell “Christ was love.”

I suspect the story may be contrived. So many of these stories

are, and it doesn’t claim to be completely true.

But its punch line, when it comes to the holy day called

Christmas, couldn’t be more true. Christ was love. Christ is love,

even today.

And that is the meaning and spirit of Christmas that can’t be

bought and can’t be envied. That is the Christmas that leaves no one

out, because its love is for one and for all.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at michele@soulfoodfiles.com.