Christmas Egg in Evergreen

  It's not every day that I discover an egg right in the middle of my Christmas decor on my kitchen window sill!

I don't know how it got there or where it came from--other than from a chicken, of course. 

But there it sat, rather out of place, right in front of the little aspen nameplate with the name of Christ--the One Who chose to arrive, so out of place it must have seemed, on this earth from glory, like that egg in evergreen.

On days when I was feeling too tired and terrible from chemo side effects to keep working all afternoon, I read Christmas story after story in a gem of a book I have called Guideposts Christmas Treasury.

In that book, the stories run the gamut from stories about poor people who miraculously got a Christmas tree and gifts

to a story of an immigrant girl whose employer's family had so much more than they could ever need or want that she didn't know what to give as a gift for Christmas, so she found her way to the poorest section of town and bought and gave a baby gift for a very poor family and then gave a card to her employers telling them she had given a gift to a poor family's baby in their name, and it melted their hearts. 

Then there was the story of the family who decided they'd had enough of the frustrating fuss at Christmas time, and they were going to simplify and have a "sensible" Christmas. They decided to not include the annoying old aunt and uncle, only spend $1 on each other for gifts, and go out to eat on Christmas Day instead of slave all day making a feast.

They did so, but by afternoon on Christmas, the sensibleness fell apart and everyone realized that no one was happy at all with what they had done--or more honestly, had not done.

In making Christmas "sensible" to the point of being selfish, the family had lost the mysterious quality of that beautiful celebration that was meant to be a time of love and giving and sharing and receiving and joy and generosity-- 

 

Everyone took the blame, and the next Christmas, they poured their whole hearts into everything--including welcoming the same stodgy uncle and aunt whom they used to sort of despise, but who seemed extra easy to handle this time and who made a special sacrifice to provide a loving gift each year, something the children had never appreciated before.

 

This Christmas we found ways to simplify yet ways to celebrate generously with much love with almost all the family in.

It was a beautiful Christmas--remembering the greatest Gift of all--

Jesus Who came from Glory and nestled, like an out-of-place egg in evergreen,

in a manger, a stable, a miserable world 

that desperately needed a Savior,

and love,

and joy.