December 19th: by Rev. Lynn Vahle

It started because I couldn’t face Thanksgiving and Christmas with the same set of people. So one year we simply announced to the family that we would be out of town for Thanksgiving. We rented a cabin at the Y-camp in Granby and took the boys and headed for the hills. Soon it became a tradition that we would use the four days of the Thanksgiving weekend to “get away”.

We always went to the mountains. We always rented a cabin or a condo with a fireplace, though it didn’t always have a TV. In the first years the boys always spent much of each day sledding, but before long they were off to the ski slopes. Jerry and I spent the day reading or napping by the fire, sometimes taking a walk, or poking through antique stores in town. I usually wrote our Christmas letter. Meals were simple - sloppy joes instead of a big turkey dinner with all the trimmings. And in the evening we played games, talked, and relaxed with one another. There was a lot of laughter and at least for me a lot of time for reflection.

It was a way to get away from “the maddening crowd” for a while, to escape all the hype and tension of the coming Christmas season, and to prepare myself for the month of December. And it worked. I could return refreshed and ready to plunge into all the decorating, cooking, gifting, and partying that are part of Christmas.

For a long time I thought it was getting away, getting into a new environment and a new routine that was refreshing. At other times I felt it was the lack of responsibility and the permission to read all day if I wanted to that was freeing. Some years I just needed the time to rest before all the activity of the holiday season began. But I now realize there was more going on than I realized. It truly was my preparation for Christmas.

It was an opportunity to spend four uninterrupted days and nights with the four men I love the most. All of our various schedules took a back seat to being together. It helped us define in new ways what it was to be a family. For four days we shut the world out and we rediscovered each other. And we had fun doing it. At the heart of the Christmas story is a family that traveled to a new place and drew on each other’s strength. A family that brought love into a crazy and preoccupied world.

Those Thanksgiving weekends provided us with many memories. And I believe they were important to all of us because that is still what we do to prepare for Christmas. Now we don’t rent a cabin- we gather in a mountain home that belongs to one of our sons. And there is no longer five of us but fourteen! We talk, we play games, we work on a puzzle, we read and nap, the kids go sledding, we watch a movie or a video, and we relax and laugh together. We remind ourselves what it means to be family and we go back to our busy lives ready to celebrate the birth of God’s son and our inclusion in God’s family.

Rev. Lynn Vahle