Has Christmas Arrived Yet?

I am couch-afghan-snuggling in the light of candlelight and tree on Christmas Eve reading poetry by John Shea called Seeing Haloes: Christmas Poems to Open the Heart. I toss back the wooly red flannel and peer into the oven to check the citrus and cinnamon heaven beckoning me.

Cardamom Christmas Bread.

I tried preparing it once earlier this week already, but accidentally killed the yeast, thereby delaying the arrival of the hoped-for finished loaf.

It’s not Christmas yet, you might say. And I would be grateful for the reminder that I’m technically not “late.” But having missed bringing it to the family gathering yesterday is a reminder to me that Christmas often becomes a list to manage rather than an experience to seek and wait for.

The company of the past few days has gone, and in the quiet left behind I begin to look forward to midnight tonight, when the air will begin to shimmer in a mystical way, as I remember the Mystery of Hopes-Fulfilled on many a Christmas morning. I still feel a sense of delight and awe that people everywhere, from all traditions and none, stop on this day to look for the grace of being genuinely seen and known through gifts given and received. If not overshadowed by the massive over-consumption of products not needed by most, and the excruciating poverty of even more, this gift-giving in the Spirit of the Magi might truly bring global transformation.

But this first Christmas as a grandmother in 2024 has brought a different kind of awareness to my heart and spirit. Three months ago tonight, our daughter-in-law’s heart was torn and bleeding, like her pelvic floor, after giving birth to her first child in the wake of a life-threatening accident to her mother a few days earlier. We smiled with wet eyes at this tiny new life emerging under the massive shadow of loss and what-ifs, not sure whether to trust the feeling of joy so shot-through with sky-high levels of cortisol and shock.

And tonight I made Cardamom Christmas Bread for the occasion. It’s a recipe I’ve had for over a dozen years, recommended by a dear friend now gone, but whose memory still fills my heart. And I knew this year the 3 braids of dough packed with raisins and orange zest would be a fitting way to honor the Trinity of Lover, Beloved, and Love that has been holding our son and daughter-in-law’s family firmly and guiding them with angelic companions along their way.

The loaf is smeared with egg white and sprinkled with slivered almonds before baking, and what hits me hard is the image of almond shards, striking my senses with a similarity to the crown of thorns so connected to the Festival of the Resurrection. And of course, this is as it should be. I wouldn’t be surprised if EVERY Christmas Bread contains slivered-almond-thorns!

For if we truly understand the Trinitarian miracle of Incarnation—that “there is not a spot where God is not” in all of creation—then what must also be true is that every heartbreak also contains the seeds of healing, redemption, and new life. God-ness as a woven rope of 3 unbreakable cords/chords invites us to skip rope to the strains of music pouring forth from every Christmas Creche, small and large, around the globe this evening…”Christness has always been here…and it’s now unfolding as your very own LIFE!”, it plays again and again in the stereo systems of our hearts.

We cannot will Christmas to arrive in our hearts anymore than we can will sleep to come to us when we are tired at the end of a long day. But I pray this evening that “seeing haloes” in surprising places may happen in and through your own Mystery of Incarnation that Christ continues to call forth through Spirit each day.

Merry Christmas!