The Work of Christmas

Each year, as November becomes December, I remember how my mother decorated early and beautifully for Christmas. Colored lights were hung on the house, and a giant wreath could be seen from the street. A pine tree stood as tall as the living room ceiling with ornaments, lights, and silver tinsel icicles.  The “Christmas lamp,” a porcelain angel holding a lighted candle, stood in a cloud of white angel hair. A creche of plaster figures with paint loved off edges and faces sat in straw. A stack of classic Christmas books and stories were set at an angle on the coffee table. An antique glass pickle barrel was filled with Christmas cookies – green trees and wreaths, red reindeer and Santas, and gingerbread folk with chopped dates for buttons. A bow of red ribbon, ironed anew every year, held ancient and shriveled mistletoe in a doorway; and sequined, bejeweled stockings hung in waiting for Christmas morning. It was beautiful and we loved it, and it was a lot of work.

Through my growing years this was the work of Christmas – the decorating (and the undecorating!), the shopping, the gifting, the cooking, the hosting. And while some of this continues in my life, even in the monastery, today I lean more toward Howard Thurman’s idea of the work of Christmas:

The Work of Christmas by Howard Thurman

When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and the princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flock

The work of Christmas begins:

                To find the lost,

                To heal the broken,

                To feed the hungry,

                To release the prisoner,

                To rebuild the nations,

                To bring peace among brothers, (sic)

                To make music in the heart.

Thurman reminds us that Christmas is more than a day or a season that we prepare for and clean up afterward. Christmas is a way of life, a way of being, a living vocation that binds us with the Divine. Christmas shines a light on God’s call for us to help make our world more just, healthy and peaceful. As God-With-Us is born into a world torn apart by partisanship, prejudice, political instability and war, the work of Christmas will take all of us, working together with God, for the transformation of the world.

--Sr. Miriam Elizabeth, OSH

How has the work of Christmas changed for you?

What does your work of Christmas look like this year?