A Thrill of Hope

A Thrill of Hope

Sometimes it arrives early.  A momentary frisson that startles our senses on an otherwise insignificant November morning.  We close our eyes to take it in just as it evaporates, leaving behind a faded palette of ice grey and green.   Perhaps we feel it  passing by like a memory, nonchalantly drifting along on the notes of an old familiar song. Instinctively, our soul reaches out, but it’s suddenly gone, disappeared like a vapor of snow mist.  A distant trill of sleigh bells, a certain shade of red.  We never know when a hint of it will come rushing back, only to quickly ebb before we can claim all the magic it offers.  But still, we recognize.  Still we remember the spirit of Christmas.

Every Christmas was a fantasy when we were children.  We never gave a thought to Christmas Spirit, never wondered when, or if, it would come upon us.  Santa Claus. Father Christmas.  The Baby in the manger.  Sugar cookies with scarlet sprinkles - carols, presents, velvet dresses.  Each individual element of the holiday season was tangible enchantment and stirred all together, they created a magical spell of goodness and hope that we we never questioned.  It was ever trustworthy, never mercurial; we knew it would come as surely as we knew the calendar pages would turn, filling our hearts and flooding our minds with a warmth unmatched throughout the rest of the year.

But adulthood brings, and occasionally steals, many things.  We have more responsibility and less innocence.  We know where the presents are hidden for we are the ones who hid them.  Sometimes in the flurry of Christmas cards and cookie dough, we suddenly stop and remember that old feeling of childhood.  Will it come to us again this year?  What if the whole of the season slips past without it?  What if Christmas becomes just another series of December tasks to complete, mere items on an albeit festive list of chores?  We might despair at the thought, if only we had the time.

But then one night we find ourselves sitting in a candlelit, choir-filled chapel and just as a little girl struggles to hit the highest note in O Holy Night, we feel it.  Almost casually, like a whisper, it returns as ever before.  The old wonderment, the familiar good will.  The thrill of hope that is the gift of Christmas.  We close our eyes and remember its sweetness.  We reach for the hand of our loved one sitting beside us as we recall anew the reason for all the colour and the light, the presents and the love.   

The fantasy of a child’s Christmas is not lost to us as adults.  Calmer perhaps, and more serene, it floats toward us on the breezes of memory.  We never take it for granted now. Through the long lenses of our lives, we see it as the time of ultimate good that brings beauty to a weary world. 

And so we tie lavish bows.  We hang beribboned wreaths.  

We sing along with the carolers when they knock upon our door.

We wish for no other Christmas than the one at our table
 and we feel its presence like a candle flame in the darkest depths of our soul.

If it were in my power, I would give one gift to each of you.  

That sweet thrill of hope that is Christmas.

May you feel it again this year.

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Last shipping date before Christmas for "From The House of Edward"
 is December 15th!

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