When I was a little girl, I remember a book that lived on our coffee table all throughout the holidays. It was a simple little book of legends about Christmas called “A Wreath of Christmas Legends”. I’m sure at one time it had a lovely dust cover, but that has long since been lost. I’m also certain it is out of print. Way out of print, I would imagine with a copy right of 1964. Somehow I managed to end up with this book. I don’t know if my mom gave it to me, if I asked for it, or if I just absconded with it as my brother accused me of doing with “Miss Suzy” and “Old Black Witch”- two of our childhood favorites. (To be fair, I did do some massive internet searching and track down a copy of “Miss Suzy” for him when he was about 45!). This simple little book with its quaint pencil sketches has always spoken of the real “Christmas” to me. It’s full of little legends expressed mostly in poetry, a few in prose, about all the creatures, plants, and even insects who were present at the first Christmas.
Children often don’t know why they are drawn to things. They lack words, language, intellectual constructs, and capacity to self reflect deeply about what draws them to or what repels them from something. They just sort of gravitate to something or they don’t. This little book of simple poem stories with title such as “The Stork”, “Ballad of the Rosemary”, “Why the Owl Wakes at Night”, “The Legend of the Cat”, “Legend of the Holly”, “The Canticle of the Bees” was something I would pour over as a young child and use my imagination to ponder what all these creatures saw and did when the Christ child was born.
It wasn’t until fairly recently that I figured out or rather uncovered, what it was/is about these simple but lovely little stories about nature and creation being a central part of the incarnation event: even as a child I sensed the underlying connectedness of all things. I somehow intuited that God doesn’t come into the world just for humans- that God came into the world for all of creation- and naturally all of creation would therefore somehow recognize this grand event and gather to celebrate it. I was an incarnationist and honorary Franciscan even as a child, but of course I wouldn’t have even known what those things meant. All I knew is that I believed that the robin got his red breast by blowing on the embers to warm the baby, the pine tree stays evergreen because Mary blessed it for dropping it’s branches to protect them as the Holy Family was fleeing into Egypt, that the cat stayed and watched vigil over the baby all night long and henceforth was made a domestic creature and gave up her wild nature, that the holly used to have white berries until the Christ child pricked his little finger on prickly leaves making the berries forever red. All of these little legends and stories were far more real to me than that of a jolly old man in a red suit flying around the night sky with a bunch of reindeer. I did say that I was not your typical child didn’t I? No matter. I didn’t grow up to be a typical adult either. I still love to curl up every year with a warm fire, a cup of tea, and this book in my lap. It takes me back to a happy childhood. And it reminds me of how all of creation sings this time of year as we welcome the child who has come into the world, and who comes again and again, as he is born in you and me, and all of creation.
Namaste!