Monday, December 21, 2020
Karen Horton
Christmas Traditions
In 1980 my new husband Rob and I celebrated our first Christmas together. He was a second lieutenant in the Air Force, we had moved from the Hudson Valley to Arizona, and I started studying engineering, hardly a traditional occupation for an officer’s wife. I was struggling. During Advent I tried to recreate the traditions of Christmas – the dinner, the tree, the gifts. My extended family had “always” gone to my great-aunt Margie’s for Christmas dinner, then exchanged rounds of gifts under the tree. But Christmas traditions of the heart are not fulfilled by the by the tree or the gifts when we are far from people we miss. As much as I loved Rob, I missed my extended family.
However, we unknowingly started a new tradition that year. Our young church organist would be alone on Christmas, so I invited her to come for Christmas dinner. Ann became one of my sustaining friends while we lived in Phoenix. During Rob’s military service we repeated this new holiday tradition and hosted friends and colleagues who were also far from family in Iceland, north Florida, and Germany.
Of course the cause of my Christmas angst with my new husband was nothing compared to being pregnant, riding for hours far from home on a donkey with a fiancé who was not the father of my child, then giving birth in a stable. Was there even a midwife? I bet on that first Christmas Mary missed her family way more than I did in 1980. But she and Joseph also hosted some very memorable guests, and their experiences inspire our most-loved Christmas traditions. Mine: I can’t resist a Messiah sing-in, or a Christmas pageant, particularly if it involves children singing.
This year the Christmas tradition of the heart that I miss the most is singing in the choir in our Lessons and Carols, Advent, and Christmas Eve services. I thank St. John’s for the beautiful service recordings, and I have bookmarked the YouTube channel. But recording my hymn or choir part alone and sending it to Jennifer is a little like setting up the tree and getting the gifts but missing my family – and it makes me impatient to return to our choir’s in-person Christmas traditions!