Christmas Eve

Posted December 25th, 2003 by Sean Williams

We have had a great day, but great days aren’t really what I use this blog for. I use this blog in order to demystify the demons that I have, I use this space for looking for the worst in situations, I don’t really use this for celebration.

So, the bad part about today is that I miss the family who isn’t here. I miss my dad and I really miss Kent and Melissa and the kids. I always miss my dad on Christmas, but I also missed him a lot for my whole life so that’s something I have learned to manage. I really wish we could have been with Sean and Lucas today on top of all this.

Our last two Christmases were sort of a last hurrah, I think. We’re now moving in to more of an adult Christmas, one where we bring our new families together with our old ones, where we try to marry the people we marry to the people we were born with. And it is just really lovely, although it is new and different. To say this is as good as we can expect to have in our mid thirties is wrong, it is much much better than that. But I do miss the people who can’t be here.

Jordana and I had our first date at a Passover Seder, so we are definitely aware of the sublime and the ridiculous when it comes to something like this. That night she asked me what my favorite children’s story was, her belief being that your favorite fable from childhood is indicative of what your priorities will be, who you are deep down.

After thinking about it some time, I told her that my favorite story is the story of the christ-child’s birth. Not the virgin and not the martyr to be, but the shepherds and the wise men and the manger surrounded by animals. There was nowhere for them to sleep that night, Mary was in danger of dying if she didn’t find somewhere to lie down, and they ended up in the barn. When the baby was born, shepherds were told, “Listen, you need to see this. Someone needs to see this, and you are right here. You are *right here*! Come on.”

There was a child who would change the world, but right now, he had nothing. The feeding trough was the only place to put his head. Greatness can be achieved by anyone, no matter how insignificant they might seem. Some of us achieve only what has been made easy for us, we only spend the time we have spared, we only love those who love us, we only travel the road that was built before we got there. But from this tiny baby, this one shining miracle of birth in a sea of billions and billions of births, this person changed the earth, made us what we are today.

So, it sticks with me. I cry every Christmas, at the songs and remembering the stories. I can’t really be coherent about something like this, but for me, it is larger than the cliches. I am no Christian, but I love what Jesus means to me.

Jordana is pretty sick, she had a bleeding cyst on her ovary that has made her unable to keep any food in her and made her terribly uncomfortable, and I got really scared tonight for a little while, really scared that she was going to be going through something bad. And I just know that the greatness that she was born to be has not happened yet.