12/23/2006

The Year I Got Wise To Christmas

By Gretchen Murray
Local columnist

I have a confession to make. As a religion writer, I am a fraud when it comes to Christmas. For all the stories I have told over the years about people reaching out to share its real meaning, I'm the one who has been pushing endless carts of must-have, materialistic stuff through the checkouts since early October.

It's what I've done ever since I became old enough to be responsible for putting joy in another individual's Christmas morning, and I've attacked the holiday with an inherited German precision that instinctively compels me to shop the fresh stock of Matchbox cars long before Thanksgiving and put Cabbage Patch dolls on layaway months before parents start slugging it out over them in the aisles of Toys R Us.

Christmas always was an extravaganza at my house, a wonderful, anticipated time of year that built to a crescendo of food, gifts and family. I confess, I didn't know any better. For decades, the true meaning of the holiday played in the background while I cleaned, baked, decorated and scrubbed greasy pans for family, friends and neighbors — and eventually, nobody in particular as children grew up and back-to-back moves narrowed our circle of acquaintances.

I was in that methodical mindset a few Christmases back as I pushed yet another cartload of stuff into an endless checkout line at a Kmart in Chicago. I vaguely paid attention as a young man two carts ahead started putting his items on the conveyor belt.

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A dark blue uniform with a zippered jacket, work shoes and the dirt under his fingernails labeled him a mechanic. The woman in front of me and I barely blinked as he unloaded a little Christmas tree, a string of lights, boxes of ornaments and a star for the top. He also had two boxes of macaroni — the little ones with the powdered cheese.

As we watched the items go into bags, those of us in line seemed to have the same vision of this young man going home to a warm little dinner and a nice, little tree.

A young woman bagged the items while the man peeled off a few bills and set off with his purchases. A moment later, the woman noticed that he left a bag behind, one with some ornaments and the macaroni and cheese.

"Oh well. He'll be back for it,” she said, tiredly looking through the bag.

"But what if that was his dinner?” asked the lady in front of me.

Without a word the young woman ran to the parking lot to catch him. She returned with the bag as the warm scene that had been in our thoughts seconds ago iced over. We were hoping he'd be having a nice evening and we were disappointed and sad.

It was that same year, and convinced I needed more stuff, I was sitting in my car in front of the mega-grocery late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. Caught up in a Christmas carol moment on the radio, I watched as a young couple parked their truck. It was obvious they were in love, smiling and laughing as they walked with their arms around each other's waists into the store.

They came out quickly — too soon, I thought, to have perused the aisles for the perfect items. Still smiling and laughing, they put their bags in the truck and then went back to a pile of leftover trees lying on the ground. Without even inspecting it, each took an end of one and carried it to the truck. I was aghast. How anyone could make a beautiful Christmas out of the leftovers of the herds of people who trampled through that store that day was beyond me.

These two vignettes have stayed with me for a long time, and I think they've helped me figure a lot of things out.

Maybe Christmas isn't supposed to be about the rooms that look like catalog shots or the perfect presents. Maybe Christmas is about a couple who loved each other and who walked with their arms around each other's waists into Bethlehem those thousands of Christmas Eves ago, content to make do with the dregs of what they could find that night.

What if it's not about the bows starched crisp with a curling iron or a kitchen full of cookies, but about a baby born that night who would grow into a young man of modest means with the power to raise the consciousness and compassion of strangers around him and compel others to run to find him.

Just maybe the miracle of what played out that night so long ago gets an update every now and then.

Every millennium or so, God takes the characters, puts them in street clothes and lets them walk among us for a while to offer us small snippets of hope and comfort in a troubled world and the assurance that the greatest gift of all is still alive and well to those who seek it — and available at a store near you.

Reach Gretchen Murray at gmurray@record-eagle.com.