Yes, in point of fact, I do live!

I won't even try to explain my 6-month absence; I have no readers anyway. Occasionally, I consider that a very good thing.

I'm sitting in Starbucks. There is holiday decor everywhere; snowflakes abound, as do Christmas songs.

It's not even Thanksgiving yet, but I'm already homesick for Christmas. Maybe I'm more homesick for the idea of home. I don't have many great Christmas memories with my family; we have virtually no extended family, and what we have we are estranged from. Alcoholism is a key player, of course. There are many arguements, much coldness, and despite decorations and Christmas music and homemade cookies, very little joy or cheer. This will be my first Christmas away from the family; I predict that I will be very lonesome. I guess this is normal, even though Christmas has been fairly ghastly there for as long as I can remember.

Yet every Christmas, however awful, I've gone outside at some point during Christmas eve. Usually, it's in the evening. Sometimes there is snow falling, sometimes it's just cold. But there will be a moment of silence and expectancy and poignant loneliness; the world is somehow waiting for Christ's birth all over again. Maybe Anne Sofie von Otter best explains it in her song Koppangem:

There is silence around me in the peaceful winter night;

From the church, down in the valley, I can see the candlelight;

And I stopped for a moment in this winter paradise,

When I heard a choir singing through the darkness and the ice,

And the rays from the lights behind the window’s vaulted frames

Had united the souls in hope that something great is waiting.

And I know that those who had left us here had the same thoughts as I:

They’re like flames in the darkness and the stars up in the sky.

And I can see how they sparkle, and they fade before my eyes,

And the truth is coming closer, like a wonder in disguise:

We are brought here a moment,

Like an imprint of a hand,

On an old and frosted window,

Or a footprint in the sand.

For a while I’m eternal, that’s the only thing I know,

I am here and we share our dreams about our destination.

It is cold out here, and the snow is white, but I’m warm deep inside;

I am warm ‘cause I know that my faith will be my guide.

Now there is silence around me; I have heard those words again

In a hymn of grace and glory, saying “Nothing is in vain!”

I can sing and believe it; let the message reach the sky!

Oh silent night, let your promise never die!

And I know before the others; it is peaceful in the church;

He was born for a purpose, and that’s why we’re here together.

Holy night, I feel like a child inside, and indeed He was sent,

So I’m lighting a candle each Sunday in Advent.

That feeling of waiting, of expectancy, and then of such triumph explains Advent and Christmas to me better than anything else.

Isaiah mentions brings it in with the readings in Advent; Awake, watch, look, prepare! Comfort ye my people, saith your God; The voice of him crying in the wilderness "Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for your God."

No matter how unpleasant Christmas can be, I know from year to year that there will be the beautiful music, the creche, the glory and mystery and divinity of the Christmas Masses--and that moment of deep peace and great joy, of expectancy and fulfillment, of love and sacrifice. In that moment is everything of the Church and God and the divine, and I can be as a little child and believe with every fibre of my soul.

I have no idea why I just wrote all that. Maybe I'll look back on it at sometime in the future, or maybe a reader will find something in there that clicks. Whatever the reason, I'm glad I put in on "paper."

May you and all yours have that moment this Christmas.