Christmas Magic

I read something this morning that got me thinking about what makes Christmas magical for me. As I thought through it, I realized how much I've changed in my lifetime, but especially in recent years.

When I was little, of course it was all about the anticipation of presents. I don't remember Santa ever really being a part of the magic because I was 5 when a friend in my kindergarten class told me he wasn't real.

As I got older, but still pre-driving age, it became not only about the presents but also about traditions - seeing all of my cousins on Christmas Adam (the night before Christmas Eve), loading up in a van with them to look at Christmas lights, listening to Christmas music on the drive home from Grandma's house on Christmas Eve and shivering because the windows were rolled down so Jan could cool off because Grandma always kept the house too warm (and oh how I can relate to that now!), yummy breakfast on Christmas morning at Daddy's, and finally the transfer to my mom's house that afternoon for the rest of Christmas break, which usually included reading a stack of new books she gave me even though she hated seeing me "with my nose in a book all the time."

Sometime in highschool, when the family started changing (boyfriends, girlfriends, marriages, divorces), Christmas lost it's magic for a while.

Then God sent me Dave and Christmas got magical again, even during the darkest period of my life, he brought magic to Christmas. It wasn't just magic in the form of romance and renewed anticipation (because Dave Roper loves Christmas more than any person I know); it was because he gave me the first Christmas gift. The baby Jesus.

"But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” - Luke 2:10-12

I was 13 when I prayed the prayer of salvation, but I wandered around for a lot of years after that not really knowing what it meant, certainly not understanding what a gift that little baby was. Dave changed all that when he told me point blank, in his very Dave way, "You think that you get to heaven by being a good person and doing good things? You're wrong." He then proceeded to tell me exactly how you get to heaven and he took me to church. Again and again and again until we were both convinced that I understood that it takes more than works to get to heaven. It takes faith. It was only after that that he married me.


Then the magic of Christmas became about candlelight communion and awestruck reverence for a tiny baby who would be my Savior. It became about waking up with my husband on Christmas morning and traveling to see our families.

Then our family started to grow. The year I was pregnant with Ella was also the first year our church did the Night in Bethlehem production. I worked and worked, lived and breathed the city of Bethlehem for a solid month and do you know what happened? I suddenly had a new perpective of God's greatest gift, that of a pregnant woman. How must she have felt with such an unbelievable story of immaculate conception, knowing that she carried the child of God?

"But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” Luke 1:30-33

Then we had Luke and I got to sit in the stable and play the part of Mary and see the recreated magic of people on a journey to find a baby. I got to sit quietly and think about what it would be like to know that my tiny baby would the world's savior. Did she know?

"When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.  But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." Luke 2: 17-19

And now the magic of Christmas is about a 3 year old voice sharing the story of Jesus, from birth to resurrection, with her animals in the shower. It's about my 16 month old son bringing me the baby Jesus from our Nativity playset so I could give him kisses, and entire evenings of acting out the Christmas story with the same playset. (Thank you, friend, for giving us that Nativity set. It might be the best gift my children have ever received.) It's about, "Don't worry, Mommy. I'll just put the ornaments back on the tree if he pulls them off" and knowing every word to the preschool musical before it happens. It's about explaining why we give presents at all and shopping to fill stockings for kids whose parents cannot afford to do it this year. It's about lights and trees and cookies and presents, and most of all, it's about the baby Jesus.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." - John 3:16"