The Best Night
Christmas Eve is here again! It seems that this year has flown by. I cannot believe that it is almost 2025. It has been a good year, and I thank God for giving me another Christmas Eve. Sometimes, I feel that Christmas Eve is more magical than Christmas Day.
As a kid, Christmas was all about gifts. The moment my parents would get that big JCPenney catalog in the mail, my siblings and I would be clamoring to be the first ones to have their turn with that big catalog. It had pages upon pages of all the latest toys. I would spend hours pouring over those pages with my colored marker. We would circle the things we wanted with our color. Before long, circles were drawn all over the toy section of the catalog.
My dad was a lot like Clark Griswold in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation when it came to Christmas trees. No, we didn’t go and cut down our own, but we were always searching for the most enormous tree on the lot. Every year, it seemed the tree just kept getting bigger and bigger, and every year, it wasn’t Christmas until my dad would say his famous line, “This is the best tree we’ve ever had.”
I have so many great memories of Christmas Eve. My family would always go over to one of my aunt and uncle’s houses when we all lived in the same town, and we’d have a great time unwrapping gifts from cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncles.
The church I grew up going to always had a midnight service. I am slightly biased, but I’m convinced there isn’t a more beautiful sanctuary on Christmas Eve than my childhood church. There is something magical about that place on Christmas Eve. Going there that late and seeing all my friends was so much fun. The place was always packed with people, even that late at night. As midnight loomed, we would all have candles and light them while singing Silent Night together with nothing but the candles for lighting. I will never forget those moments. It was always during that song that I was in the sanctuary and saw the dark sanctuary lit up by candlelight one by one, which reminded me of what Christmas was all about. It reminded me of the light that Christ brings into my life.
It was easy back then to lose sight of Christmas’s true meaning. I was too hyper-focused on what I was getting for Christmas to allow other thoughts to occupy my mind. As an adult, it still seems easy to get bogged down with other things regarding Christmas. Do we have enough gifts for everyone? Is there enough to eat? Is the house clean enough?
I watched the classic A Charlie Brown Christmas with my family a few weeks ago. I hadn’t seen it in years. In the movie, Charlie Brown is searching for the true meaning of Christmas. It was terrific how Charlie Brown’s friend Linus stood up on stage and beautifully and boldly delivered the Nativity story.
What a powerful message. As many of us join together tonight at candlelight services across the globe, let us be reminded of this magical night so long ago. Remember that we are to go forward and proclaim the same truth. What a fantastic thing. What a wonderful night.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
