Check It Out: Passing on the light of Christmas

By Joan Janzen

Quite a few years ago, people from across Canada shared their Christmas memories in Country Woman magazine. One person remembers their Christmas tree adorned with tiny candles. Because they were a fire hazard, a pail of water sat on the floor close to the tree throughout the holiday season. However, she only remembered the family having to use the water once when her uncle brushed against the tree and his jacket caught fire.

Another Canadian recalled her family always having a real tree. Each year, her parents would haul in a heavy potted evergreen tree, and her mom would cover the bulky container with white flannel to make it look like snow. Her dad would string lights on the tree’s boughs, and she and her sister would make coloured paper chains and strings of popcorn for decorations. They used whatever they had, including coloured milk bottle caps, to make homemade decorations. And, of course, there was plenty of tinsel hanging on the tree, something you don’t see on Christmas trees today.

But when the first weekend after New Year’s Day arrived, the family would strip the tree of all its splendour, except for the stubborn strands of tinsel, and haul it out to their backyard. There, they would pick a spot and plant their Christmas tree, which they would thoroughly water to protect it from the freezing weather in January. Each year, another tree was added to their large backyard.

Fast forward forty years later, when the woman returned to her hometown and drove by her childhood home to have a peek at the old house. The owners were out working in the front yard, and when they saw her parked out front, came over to chat.

When she told them she had grown up there, they offered to take her on a tour, where she found herself surrounded by a forest of evergreen trees in the backyard. The owners said they had been drawn to the home because of the huge evergreens.

The woman walked up to one of the trees and was shocked to find a piece of old tinsel on one of the branches. Anyone who remembers the days when tinsel was popular knows it’s impossible to get rid of. But the trees which had been planted over four decades earlier were now providing shelter, shade and beauty for generations to come. Those trees had drawn the new owners to that house.

As I read the story, I recalled Christmas when I was growing up. I have vivid memories of staying up late and then heading to a country church for a midnight Christmas service. Everyone received a candle when they entered the church, not the battery-operated kind, but candles with real wicks.

Although I usually had a nap during the service so I’d be rejuvenated for gift opening when we got home, I did stay awake for one particular part of the service. That part was when all the lights were turned off, and one solitary candle was lit. Before you knew it, that candle had lit another, and another, until the flames spread all the way down the row to my candle.

Now the entire sanctuary had gone from darkness to light, and very carefully, I lit the candle next to me, feeling honoured to be spreading light along with all the adults. It’s a memory I will never forget.

So this Christmas, I hope you will pass on light to the people in your lives. Light of hope, love, encouragement, courage, kindness, joy and much much more. It may not seem like much at the time, but if you keep spreading it year after year after year, decades later, you will find the light you passed on alive and well in the lives you touched, much like those Christmas trees that became a forest.

The one who brought the light into the world was named Jesus, and He wants to pass His light on to you. This Christmas, I want to pass on the light from the candle of my heart to the heart of each one of you who manages to read this missive to the very end. God bless you all.