Every December I wait for it to come, wondering if this is the year it won’t, when the magic will fail me.
I detour through the great hall at Grand Central Terminal to check out the amazing laser light show on the celestial ceiling. I walk by the magnificent tree at Rockefeller Center and take a minute to watch the skaters on the rink below, amused by the vast difference in proficiency displayed. I slow my step past Lord & Taylor to see what elaborate theme the store has chosen for its famous Christmas windows. And I wait.
This year nothing has worked. Am I jaded, or have I just become immune to the Christmas spirit? It saddens me to think it could be true. And then…
I’m walking home from work past some glaringly lit 99-cent store in the West 30s when I overtake a well-dressed little girl, maybe four (I’m not very good at discerning kids’ ages), accompanied by an older adult of a different race in a bulky overcoat that is well cared for but not of recent vintage.
An educated guess tells me it isn’t the little girl’s mom. Probably her nanny taking her on an errand. As they pass the 99-cent store, the little girl tugs her guardian off course and points at the window.
“What’s that?” she demands.
I take a glance at the window. I know what it is. It’s the cheapest, crummiest nativity scene I have ever beheld. The reproductive quality is atrocious. Mary has what looks to be an expression of horror on her face and the baby Jesus appears to be having a seizure. Joseph is entirely missing. Maybe the chartreuse donkey, which is distinctly menacing, has eaten him.
Then the woman speaks. “That’s the nativity,” she says. “You don’t know that?”
“Not really. I mean, a little bit.”
The woman bends on one knee, pulls her little charge close and begins to talk softly.
I scoot past them. There is a kind of swelling in my chest, a building of warmth from within. My shoulders relax. I hadn’t known I was so tense. I slow my normal breakneck pace. I pass St. Francis Church, then St. John’s. I never cease to be amazed by how many churches there are in New York.
How God is everywhere, even in the fluorescent light of the 99-cent store and the tawdriest crèche I have ever seen.
Manhattan is a fantastic place to see Christmas and all its trappings—the lights, the endless soundtrack of holiday music, the streets bustling with shoppers and bell ringers, break dancers and panhandlers, cops and kids. The vast panorama that is the Big Apple in December.
But the spirit of Christmas is not in its trappings, no matter how wonderful. The spirit is in the eternal story we celebrate. It emanates from a stable in tiny Bethlehem and resounds across the cosmos.
And every year, no matter what, a bit of it infuses my spirit, a powerful dose of the Christmas spirit, something to which I will never become immune.
What gets you in the spirit of the season? Post below please.
