We do it every year.

It’s always there, the unspoken expectation that this Christmas will be bigger and shinier and sweeter than the one before.

By the end of the Christmas Day, when the shreds of paper and ribbon are picked up off the floor and we can’t possibly eat another morsel, if the topics of politics and religion have been successfully dodged and no one got sick and everyone is feeling fat and happy, we might look at each other in triumph and breathe, We did it. We had the best Christmas ever. Again.

But every Christmas has its cares. Sometimes the pain is acute, and we feel cheated. Other years we find we can’t conjure up feelings of good will toward men, not when we’re in line at Wal-mart, at least. There’s always somebody or something missing, even if we can’t put our finger on it. What do you think about when the church lights are dimmed and you’re holding the little candle you’ve been issued and you’re trying not to get wax on your Christmas Eve finest as you sing ‘Silent Night’? Why the lump in the throat?

After my grandfather died one December, I shared a hymnal with my Nana during service and heard her voice crack with fresh grief. A few years later, when she was gone too, my sad ‘Silent Night’ was for her. Or was it? Maybe it was relief, in some strange way, to have a reason to be melancholy. I’m not talking about being moved by the symbol of the Light in the darkness. I’m talking poor me, a sense that all is not right with the world at a moment when it should at least seem to be.

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These are the golden sessions—when our slippers are on, our feet spread out toward the blaze, and our drinks at our elbows; when the whole world and something beyond the world opens itself to our minds as we talk… Life (natural life) has no better gift to give than friendship.~ C.S. Lewis

Yesterday I leapt before I looked and shared a little bit more of Helen—and thus my soul—than is my custom. I went against policy, shall we say.

I was suddenly inspired while slipping on my red suede shoes. There I was, getting dolled up for book club on a day when the roads were messy and school was closed. The phone in the kitchen kept ringing, but never did it cross my mind that our little gathering would be cancelled. I knew better—it would take much more than an ice storm to call off our monthly meeting, which has gone on despite kids with the flu, power outages, broken heaters and all kinds of weather extremes. I wasn’t even deviating from vulnerable footwear for the occasion. This reminded me of something in a book, my book.

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So serious am I about this business of keeping Christmas, I can’t help but count these December days’ little victories—and defeats.

I am determined not to huff and puff my way through this cherished season, but each year I end up spending at least a day or two doing just that. Sunday was the low. I woke up with a nasty cold, the second in just a few weeks. There was much to do to get ready for some friends coming to coffee on Tuesday, so I pressed on with preparations, telling myself I’d sit myself by the fire by three o’clock and rest. But afternoon turned into evening, and by dinnertime a meatloaf stood on the counter, a forbidding frozen block, and the mess of decking these halls with holly and cedar and pine was all over the floor, berries smashed into rugs and all. Weary in body and spirit, I treated myself to a tantrum of tears, which The Spouse had the misfortune to witness. The good man brought me Kleenex and babysat the slowly baking meatloaf for an hour and a half and made it all better.

My friend and Christmas comrade, L., has a prince of a husband, too. This year, he has coined a term at his house: the Battle for Christmas.

It’s a battle indeed. I don’t want to be Martha every minute of each day (neither the busy one in the Bible nor Ms. Stewart). I want to sit at His feet.

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Here is Emma’s next installment of her story of Satrem, Treek and the elves…

Satrem the elf sat up and stretched. He was feeling very contented right now because he had finished the last row of apple trees that needed to be weeded, right where the majority of the apples would fall around the base of the trees. The weeds grew so wild and tall in the Woody Glades that when the fruit fell the weeds seemed to swallow them up so the fruit is hidden and can be stepped on by the harvesters. They used ladders to reach the apples in the trees, but most apples were picked up and collected from the ground.

Satrem walked slowly along the many rows of apple trees and inhaled the crisp autumn air. It was good that he was going to the Autumn Festivities later so he could take a break from his work. His work was not that bad physically, but mentally for him to be squatting on the ground all day was quite difficult.

He walked briskly now, passing various knobbles of Treek pushing up, passing a grape orchard and a colorful garden. Then he came to a wide kind of green plank and pushed at it until a latch sprung up from inside and revealed a gaping dark hole. It was actually more of a tunnel with many lit torches along the sides. He plunged down and grabbed a torch. Satrem smelled the tunnel’s familiar earthy smell and came to a fork with two tunnels branching off. Once again, there were two more green planks concealing the passageways. He walked to the left gate and pushed so that the latch sprung, and he walked on.

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