One Night Before Christmas

‘Twas one night before Christmas, but not the night.  Bells had been rung, carols sung. People were wending their way home in the chilly night, passing lighted windows, boots crunching the frozen snow. The church was dark, candles snuffed out and the heat turned down. I had filed away my sermon, replaced the Bible on the shelf.  My sons and I were ready to head home, where my husband and daughter had gone ahead to take the turkey out of the oven and put the final touches on our Christmas Eve dinner.

It was 1988 on the North Shore, that long-ago Christmas, where I was serving as the interim pastor. Because I needed to arrive at the church an hour or so before the service, I took our two-seater car so that the other four could come in the Jeep; the idea being that we would switch cars for the ride home.

A last look around the building and we were ready to leave. I grabbed my pocketbook, fished for the car keys. Then, with a sinking feeling, it hit me. I had given my husband my car keys for their ride home but…he hadn’t given us the keys to the Jeep. I imagined them, still in his pocket, 30 miles away! while the three of us were stuck in the shuttered church.

1988. No cell phones. Even if I were to wait until the others got home and called the house, by the time one of them drove up to rescue us, then home again, it would be past midnight, a shriveled roast beast and cold congealed potatoes on the table.  And just when we thought it couldn’t get worse, it began to snow.

What to do? Aware that I was likely interrupting their Christmas Eve festivities, I called a church member who lived nearby. While he was unable to help, he suggested calling his next door neighbor, who had two cars and might lend me one. I called. Without so much as a moment’s hesitation, he said of course I could borrow it. “And keep it through Christmas and Boxing Day. We’ll get along just fine for a few days without it. I’ll bring it right over.”

Our Christmas angel, whose 1970’s great yellow beast of a machine got us safely home.

Still, much later, I wondered: what if we hadn’t found a way home? What if we had spent the night in the cold church?

Would that long ago cold stable on the dark night have become a bit more real?  Would spending a hungry night far from home have awakened me to the actual event in Bethlehem, so different from warm evenings by the hearth, with hot chocolate and music; so different from the way Christians today celebrate the birth?

It’s something to ponder and, truth be told, I’m pretty sure that would not have been my first thought and certainly not my sons. But, what if??