The Christmas spirit just kicked in

[This is another of several stories I intend to post from now through Christmas or perhaps New Year's.  This one first appeared in my Christmas Memories from Seven to Seventy,  available in paperback from Amazon.com.]

A cartoon in The New Yorker magazine showed two men in overcoats on a street which was crowded with shoppers and decorated for Christmas. One man said to the other, “Did you feel it? The Christmas spirit just kicked in!”

I thought of that cartoon as I rode the Shortline Bus from the parsonage in the Hudson River Valley to New York City.  It was a few weeks before the big event, and I wondered when the Christmas spirit would kick in for me.

As pastor of a little church, I was going into the city for a meeting with fellow ministers. I hoped that afterward I might find some reminders of the true meaning of the season to take home to share with Pansy and our grade school-age sons.

Out on the street after the meeting, I happened on a little shop which sold nothing but Christmas goods. The display window was crowded with trees, ornaments, wreaths, centerpieces for tables and
mantels.

“This may be the place,” I thought, “if the prices aren’t sky high.”

When I went in, it seemed there was little hope of the spirit kicking in at this location. The prices went as high as three hundred fifty dollars for fully festooned trees. But there were also ornaments for
as low as three dollars and fifty cents. I browsed a while before buying a couple of ornaments from the low end of the price range.

One tree decoration was a miniature manger scene with Mary and Joseph and the Christ Child. The other was a rather plain clear plastic disk I knew would catch the glow of the lights behind it on our
tree. This second ornament had a star design in the upper left corner and the words: “Once for a shining hour, heaven touched the earth.”

With these newfound treasures, I stepped back into the cold of the street with my topcoat collar turned high and my hat pulled low.

Despite the December chill as I made my way among the noontime crowd, for a moment, I felt warm deep down as my thoughts moved forward to the time when I would join with Pansy and Russell and Jonathan in trimming our tree. That would surely be the time when the Christmas spirit would kick in.

That warm feeling soon evaporated in that anonymous setting on the busy sidewalk. I felt I was one lone ripple in the sea of humanity awash on Lexington Avenue. But as I moved with the crowd, I noticed a church whose door was open. A midday service was in progress.

I confess that I, as a minister, do not live in a perpetual state of spiritual devotion, and I'm not always eager to go to church. But that day, something drew me in. I stepped into the vestibule and surveyed the scene, still hoping the spirit might kick in.

The service was well under way, so I slipped into the back pew to pray for a moment. After a short time, they began serving Communion.

Though I didn’t go to the altar to receive the bread and wine, I reflected on the significance of what I saw unfolding with the minister and the people.

My thoughts went back and forth. I sat there hugging my new tree ornaments, small symbols of the meaning of Christmas. I was eager to get on with Christmas. Then it dawned on me: Christmas was
being celebrated right before my eyes.

The broken bread and the cup are a vivid depiction of the other end of the Christmas story. Even in the time when we celebrate the birth of Jesus, Communion reminds us that Jesus came to live and to
die and be resurrected for us.

The service ended, and I again found myself on the crowded streets of Manhattan. But Christmas had begun for me. “The Christmas spirit just kicked in!”