Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ

Monday, December 28, 2020

Sharon Musselman

Christmas Traditions

Just this past week, I watched my three and six year old grandchildren on facetime as they decorated Christmas cookies.  They excitedly told me that they were going to deliver their cookies to neighbors and friends, after, of course, sampling a few.  Last year, my 15 year old granddaughter and her friend took over my kitchen to make Christmas goodies which were wrapped with ribbons and bows and given as gifts to family and friends.  This year, 2020, there will not be a joint Christmas bake for the teenage girls, but the goodies will be made and delivered just the same.  These Christmas traditions can be as simple as bundling kids into the car for a ride or walk through neighborhoods to see light displays or watching a Christmas pageant on zoom (what a hoot!) instead of in church.  They do not have to be extravagant or expensive to make the magic of that first Christmas come alive.

My own adult children shared some of their Christmas memories that included putting lights up outside, attending Christmas Eve service at St. John’s, and making cinnamon buns for Christmas breakfast. 

All of these are simple traditions, passed on from generation to generation and this year, some have had to change in ways that seem different and strange.  But they are still the threads which connect us family to family to neighbors and friends. 

I’ll end by saying that I will hold tight to the traditions I treasure, but this year has taught me to be open to the new and different.  Merry Christmas to you and a Happy NEW Year. 

Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ

Saturday, December 23, 2020

Sandra Pagel

Christmas Traditions

Traditions, the spirit of Christmas.

 In my childhood, Christmas was a blend of Western and Eastern Christianity. My father’s family came to this country from England via Canada bringing Anglicism. My maternal grandparents emigrated to NYC in the late 1880’s from Galicia, the northernmost part of Austria, and with them came their Russian Orthodox faith and calendar. Church services filled with carols and chants brought the message of this holy season. Christmas celebrations began on December 6th, honoring St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra. On that morning, if good, we would find a small gift under our pillow. Family Christmas Day feasts on December 25th and January 7th (Orthodox) finished with singing and dancing. The tree was put up on the 24th and not taken down until mid-January, Epiphany (Orthodox). Food was constantly being prepared, be it kippers, tea cakes, stroganoff, pierogies, or festival cookies for our gatherings or to help fill the baskets at St. George’s Church for community giving.

 Married, my husband, Harry’s Swedish heritage combined with mine. St. Lucia Day on December 13th, a festival of lights, would be celebrated by my daughter serving saffron buns in the early morn by candle light. New decorations of straw or painted ornaments were added; Swedish meatballs, herring, lingonberries and vort limpa (sweet bread) would be on the table; and, the family feasts moved to our house in Connecticut.  Local events to serve others and to gather for the pageant, St. Nicholas tea and carol on the village green on Christmas Eve before services at St. Mark’s expanded traditions.

 Now, the tree goes up on December 6th, the Haitian carved crèche is in place on the buffet, the same carols and chant warm the soul, and daily reflections from all at St. John’s start the day. The sweet smells and tastes from the kitchen are prepared mostly for others. Our family comes together at my daughter’s Seacoast home with new treats including my son-in-law’s special coffees at dinner’s end.

 While new customs and rituals have been combined with the past, traditions, the spirit of Christmas, continue to bring instantaneous and lingering moments of comfort, joy and hope.

Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

Jessie Kent

Christmas Traditions

A note from Rob:

The story below was printed in the paper when Jessie was the Chairperson of the Eliot's Board of Selectmen. I had the distinct privilege of sharing this story at Jessie's funeral this past July. I miss both Jessie and Larry as I know many of you do...it's comforting to know that their wisdom, love and good humor are still shaping our community. Enjoy...

Some years ago, The Rev. Robert Dunn of St. John's Church Portsmouth, exchanged pulpits for a year with The Rev. W. Charles Hodgins of England.

Christmas Eve of that year, my husband Larry and I left to attend the midnight service. As we came up the hill to the church, we were met by our friend George Ward.

"No church tonight," he said, "We have things to do."

Before we knew what was happening, we were being whisked away in his station wagon.

At his house, we picked up a large Christmas tree that was coaxed into the wagon with hurried but careful hands. Then boxes of decorations were packed in, and we were off again.

Our destination this time was the rectory on Middle Street. Like the boldest of thieves we marched into the house, since by now the Hodgins were safely at St. Johns.

It took some doing but the tree was put up, the decorations put on, and secretly-collected gifts from parish members were placed under the tree.

By the time we returned to the church, the service was ending.

I know this was a special Christmas for the Hodgins and a special memory for all who knew about the secret tree.

And though I love the midnight service at Christmas, I'll always remember the one I missed.

Jessie Kent, Chairman of Eliot's Board of Selectmen

Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

Anne Corriveau

Christmas Traditions

I love traditions!  This year has had so many challenges and disruptions, which is why holding onto some semblance of our Christmas traditions seems more important than ever.  Traditions are a welcome routine, like a warm blanket that I reach for especially when the world seems unsettled, mysterious and difficult.  My holiday traditions involve a colorful mixture of my French Canadian heritage with a peppering of my mother’s English and Irish traditions.   Christmas Eve, for our family, is when the majority of the celebration happens – inviting friends and neighbors at our family home for an Open House where wine is flowing, Tourtiere is served and laughter is everywhere. 

We all know things will be different at the holidays this year.  What would have been a raucous Christmas Eve with my sister and family, dear friends and great-grandnephews and nieces has reverted to a coterie of two - consisting of my husband and me.  Still I’m filled with gratitude for so many blessings in my life, regardless of the omission of our Christmas Eve Tradition.

I heard a news story about Holiday “Shopping Mall Santas” who are now doing their work virtually.  Although the little ones can’t sit on Santa’s lap and hug him this year, one virtual Santa has an idea for satisfying that human need to connect.  He asks the children to look into the camera on zoom and reach out their arms toward the video screen while he also stretches his arms toward them.  He then asks them to close their eyes imagine the feeling of hugging.  I think that’s what I need to do this year.  Imagine the warm feeling of connecting in our traditional way – the love, kindness, joy, music  -  close my eyes, feel it and hold it in my heart.  And as we gather on zoom with my family during the holiday this year, I will heed that virtual Santa’s advice and fill my heart to the brim with feelings of love.

Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Brad Lown

Christmas Traditions

In the 1870’s the Sanderson family of Littleton Massachusetts began gathering in mid December to sing Christmas carols.  It was, and still is, a way to pause during a busy time of year to celebrate the season with traditional music and to reconnect with each other.  My maternal great great grandmother was a Sanderson, and she was at the first caroling party.  As a child I went to the party every year and saw the Sanderson relatives, who arrived from all over New England. My aunt, Ellie Sanderson, has played the piano at the party ever since I can remember.  Every year we sing “We Three Kings” (“sorrowing, sighing, bleeding dying, sealed in the stone-cold tomb”) and “Good King Wenceslaus” (“Bring me flesh and bring me wine!”) and someone is assigned a part to sing.  For many years my mother sang the part of the “Page” in Good King and at some point I was assigned a part and did my best to belt it out. I complied out of respect for tradition.  I played a small part in a very long tradition that connected me with my Sanderson relatives and about 150 years of unbroken annual carol singing. 

Sometimes young people don’t appreciate tradition, or don’t want to be burdened by it. Our daughter Franny didn’t appreciate the tradition of the Sanderson caroling party and announced in her early teen years that she would no longer attend. I managed to get her in the car and to the party, but she refused to get out of the car. My mother had to cajole her to come into the party, which eventually she did, and had to explain to everyone what she had been doing, sitting in the car by herself. I had the thought that someday she might appreciate it that I dragged her to the party, but I don’t think that day has yet arrived.

The party didn’t happen this year.  The virus is still in the air, and singing is a great way to spread it.  Group singing is prohibited in California.  But the party will go on next year, and I’ll be there, thinking about the farmers in the Sanderson family who got together in the 1870’s to start a tradition that connects us to them.  Like all traditions, it brings a sense of comfort, continuity and connection to the past. 

Daily Reflection | Connected in Christ

Monday, December 21, 2020

Karen Horton

Christmas Traditions

In 1980 my new husband Rob and I celebrated our first Christmas together.  He was a second lieutenant in the Air Force, we had moved from the Hudson Valley to Arizona, and I started studying engineering, hardly a traditional occupation for an officer’s wife.  I was struggling.  During Advent I tried to recreate the traditions of Christmas – the dinner, the tree, the gifts.  My extended family had “always” gone to my great-aunt Margie’s for Christmas dinner, then exchanged rounds of gifts under the tree.  But Christmas traditions of the heart are not fulfilled by the by the tree or the gifts when we are far from people we miss.  As much as I loved Rob, I missed my extended family.

However, we unknowingly started a new tradition that year.  Our young church organist would be alone on Christmas, so I invited her to come for Christmas dinner.  Ann became one of my sustaining friends while we lived in Phoenix.  During Rob’s military service we repeated this new holiday tradition and hosted friends and colleagues who were also far from family in Iceland, north Florida, and Germany.

Of course the cause of my Christmas angst with my new husband was nothing compared to being pregnant, riding for hours far from home on a donkey with a fiancé who was not the father of my child, then giving birth in a stable.  Was there even a midwife?  I bet on that first Christmas Mary missed her family way more than I did in 1980.  But she and Joseph also hosted some very memorable guests, and their experiences inspire our most-loved Christmas traditions.  Mine:  I can’t resist a Messiah sing-in, or a Christmas pageant, particularly if it involves children singing.

This year the Christmas tradition of the heart that I miss the most is singing in the choir in our Lessons and Carols, Advent, and Christmas Eve services.  I thank St. John’s for the beautiful service recordings, and I have bookmarked the YouTube channel.  But recording my hymn or choir part alone and sending it to Jennifer is a little like setting up the tree and getting the gifts but missing my family – and it makes me impatient to return to our choir’s in-person Christmas traditions!