Up, Up, and Away with Christmas!

This year I’m trying to decorate up or back or out! Up with all manger scene pieces, back with the musical snow globe, and outside with the unstable wooden reindeer I usually set on the hearth.  The idea is to somehow keep as many Christmassy things within sight, but out of reach of the twenty little fingers living at our house this Christmas and away from all the small cousins who visit frequently.  This year I am the grandmother of two walking one-year-olds and five children in the three to five category.  I think I’ve done a pretty good job.  So far the only casualty is a broken wing on an angel from a six dollar nativity.  But it’s still early December.  Little birds and gold balls now adorn the Christmas tree. As I write the little ones are still asleep in their wee little beds.  Wish me luck!  We won’t even think of putting the gifts under the tree—not yet.  We thought of fencing in the tree.  Maybe it will still come to that. We’ll see.

I’m not usually the fussy nervous grandma type, but I don’t want to be on decoration alert all season, and I don’t want to put my children in that position either.  It might not be so bad except for Hattie.  You’d never ever guess it by looking at her as she sleeps.  So innocent, so petite, so sweet, with barely enough hair to see that she is going to be blond.  With just one look you might ask if she’s even walking yet.  Oh yes—Hattie not only walks, Hattie climbs.  It’s all we can do to keep her from dancing on the dining room table. We try to keep the kitchen chairs tucked in for her benefit, but she has bumped her little face a hundred times trying to summit the kitchen table to watch the birds outside the window take their breakfast.  I have even caught her trying to scale the bookcase.  Hattie is dangerous! I told my daughter that maybe I should just get Hattie some climbing gear for Christmas, some ropes and a carabineer and some chalk.   Hence, for me it’s up, up, and away with Christmas this year.

As I brought in a particularly delicate box from the garage and stood determining the best  “up” place for safe-keeping of its contents, I could see in my mind’s eye the Lord give me a twinkly smile and say, “Aren’t you glad I don’t place all things Christmassy out of your reach Nannette!”

Standing there alone in the middle of the living room I smiled back and in the spirit of conversing with the Lord in all things I said, “You’ve got a point.  Yes, I am glad, Lord!  Christmas is a celebration of Christ, and all these decorations and gifts I’m trying so hard to protect are reminders of You aren’t they. You have been so generous in placing symbols of Your life and Your work up close and personal and everywhere.  What is it that Paul says?—‘All things denote there is a God.’  You place Your reminders where they can be experienced and picked up and handled.”

“In fact, Nannette, that is what my gospel does, it places all things Christmassy within your reach.  I put all the plain and precious reminders of my mission out where they can be touched and where they can touch you, and change you.  And if I place something up like the stars or the sun or the mountain tops or the birds it’s definitely not for safe keeping.  It’s for inspiration.  It’s to encourage you to climb.  Climb! Climb! Climb! I picked all your names for gift giving this year—every year!  Maybe I should give all My spirit siblings some climbing gear for Christmas—ropes and carbineers and chalk for Christmas and a book filled with maps of great climbs.  Oh wait, I already have.  I’ve given them My words and the words of the prophets and the principles and ordinances of the gospel.  There is no better climbing gear and instructions in all the universe.”

Maybe Hattie is the best symbol in the house of what the Lord wants me to do with Christmas.  He wants me to ascend—to climb a bit higher every new year of my life.  His philosophy isn’t “Up Up and Away” as in put it way away, when it comes to Christmas.  His symbols and gifts are all labeled, “Touch me.” “Try me.”  “To be opened immediately!”  And His call is, “Come, climb up, up, and away with Me—because of Christmas.

By Nannette W.

Posted Tuesday, December 6, 2011

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