Christmas, the Pandemic Year

Christmas At My Tutu’s House

I cannot separate out my memories of childhood Christmases from my memories of Tutu, my grandmother. And, to this day, I can easily recall the taste of the papaya that took center stage on the Christmas fruit plate. I can remember how the potato spuds poured from the box as we helped make the mashed potatoes. I can feel the cool air coming through the open lanai doors and how we would all gradually make our way from the koa wood table to the comfortable old pune’e that served as a couch. 

 

From the pune’e we would watch as my Tutu would begin her annual Christmas Day ritual of calling the relations—the older cousins and siblings who’d moved away to the mainland, all of whom knew to expect their Christmas phone call. So, when I moved away, I knew to expect the the Christmas call. 

And, when she called, I knew exactly where she was in her house—standing at the counter next to the phone with it’s coiled cord, swaying to her own music, wearing her robe against the chill of morning. On the counter there was a notepad for taking messages, a basket of Christmas cards, a cup of pencils and a ring of family photos, slowly yellowing with time. The Christmas call, that instantly invoked a yearning for the Christmas of my childhood. 

 

I would pick up the phone. And before I could say “hello”, she’d begin to sing,

 

Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say…

 

On a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day.

 

That’s the island greeting that I send to you, from the land where palm trees sway!

 

I would laugh as she sang out the notes of the Bing Crosby gem —notable only for the nostalgia it invoked for old Hawai’i and Christmases long past. 

 

Needless to say, this Christmas bears little resemblance to my childhood Christmas. The weather, of course, but also the losses and gains that mean that the table I sit at now, looks nothing like the table of my childhood. This year, many of us are sitting at tables with empty spaces, and just as I yearn for my grandmother’s voice and the comforts of childhood Christmases—many of us yearn for the long ago and far away of a be-storied past. 

 

Long ago, and far away. Already, but not yet. Here and there and what might be. Is it any wonder that so many struggle in this season? But in the midst of the struggle, I find it helpful to explore the yearnings for the past—because in my explorations, I can appreciate more deeply, the why of our traditions and our expectations. 

 

What I have discovered, for myself is that at Christmastime I long to revisit that sense of care. The sense that I had in my Tutu’s home that everything was taken care of, but more importantly I was taken care of. As I consider the plates and silver that accompanied our menu, the same menu every year, I developed a sense of being connected to a lineage beyond myself. Then, in the feasting and the carefully wrapped gifts, came a sense of abundance. A sense that someone cared about what I wanted and wanted to please me. I remember as well that sense, of wonder and excitement, of anticipation for what might be and the impossibility of Santa Claus’ journey. Then, less wonderful but perhaps even more important, I think of the sense of urgency that Christmas can bring. Of the need to get ready for the inevitable arrival of a day that no tragedy, grief, pain, anguish, or despair, can forestall. No matter how many times your heart or your body has broken, Christmas will come. 

 

Christmas has come, Christmas is here. In the midst of our messy, upside down, lives, regardless of what we can or cannot do in this particular year, Jesus is born into this world. And, that brings an amazing sense of comfort to me. A sense that no matter what we do, or fail to do. No matter what evil is in the world. No matter how far we have fallen. No matter. God’s love for us remains unhindered. God’s love for us shows up. God’s love draws near. 

 

Not through an unobtainable figure of greatness, but in the incarnate, in the flesh, form of a baby. The word that bespoke creation, the word that brings good news, the word become a new creation of flesh. 

 

The word, across thousands of miles and thousands of years, that rings out to tell us that we are loved. 

 

As we are, wherever we are, no matter where we’ve gone or where we’re going, we are loved. 

 

There is no returning to the Christmas’ of my childhood. But, the flavor of them remains on my tongue and I cherish the image of the coiled phone cord, my Tutu’s robes, and the sound of her voice as it brought me the word I needed to hear. 

 

Now, take a moment, who has spoken the words that you need to hear?