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What can children
teach us about Christmas?
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___ When we got the first box down from the attic, you could tell the difference.
___The boys always get excited when we get out the Christmas decorations, but they usually pick out one or two favorite items, such as our moose stockings or the wooden nativity and start to play with
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ALISON WINGFIELD
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them, ignoring all the work going on around them.
___ This year, they actually helped bring things down from the attic and set up the tree. I could hardly contain Luke, who began rifling through all the boxes, taking out ornaments with great abandon (I managed to rescue the fragile ones from his exuberance). Placing each of their ornaments on the tree with care, the boys started remembering who gave each one to them, or when they had made them. They are still into clumping ornaments onto one or two branches, but we managed to rearrange things here and there.
___ Their excitement was contagious.
___ Last year we only put up a small tree and a few decorations since we moved right after Christmas. So this year was even more fun as we discovered old decorations we had forgotten about.
___ As we approach the big event, I find myself getting as excited as the kids, but for different reasons. I’m excited for them and all the new things they are discovering as well as the special memories they are making.
He Said/She Said is a new regular feature of the Baptist Standard's on-line edition. Mark Wingfield is managing editor of the Standard. Alison Wingfield is a freelance writer. The Wingfields moved to Texas in January from Louisville, Ky., where Mark had been editor of the Western Recorder, in which this column appeared weekly. |
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___Christmas reminds me why Jesus said we must become like little children to enter the kingdom of God. Children exhibit an awe-struck faith when adults are content to mutter "Bah-Humbug."
___The excitement our boys have for Christmas this yea
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MARK WINGFIELD
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r is contagious—if not overwhelming.
___ They live in a world of excitement, of anticipation, of infinite possibilities. It’s at times like these I wish I could peek at the world through their eyes.
___ It’s hard for me to remember now just how the world looked from the vantage point of a 7-year-old. And I’m certainly worse off because of this memory lapse.
___ Yet if there’s ever a time we might be able to recapture the innocence, the voracious desire to learn, the gee-whiz of living, Christmas is it.
___At church this week, we sang the Christmas hymn "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing." I later reminded the boys that when they were 3-year-olds, they first learned this hymn from watching a video of the Charlie Brown Christmas special over and over. It’s the closing song of the show. The funny part was they couldn’t manipulate the big word "reconciled." Instead, they walked around the house singing "God and sinners reconsmiled."
___ I thought then, and I still do, that their newly coined word might be an improvement, because it accurately portrays the power of reconciliation. It puts a smile on your face.
___ And this is the truth we all—young and old alike—need most to hear again this week as we celebrate Christmas. The greatest joy we can know is that God has come to Earth in human flesh to reconcile sinful humanity to himself.
___ That’s enough to make anyone smile.
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