Nostalgia

I drive a five year old to school every morning. It keeps me on my toes. She is bright and inquisitive. I need to be on the look out for shapes or patterns or colours or letters or whatever else her curious mind wants us to look for, in our five minute drive from her house to the school. She also likes to learn things and when I use words she doesn’t know she is quick to ask what the words means. For instance, this week it was nostalgia. I can’t remember why I happened to use nostalgia in our conversation but she was eager to know what that word meant. I think she liked the feel of it, as the word rolled around her mouth. Nostalgia. I did my best to explain it in five-year old language. I am not sure she understood it and she soon moved on to other topics. I have continued to feel nostalgic.

According to the dictionary nostalgia is defined as “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations”. I have lived so long that I have many “happy personal associations” and this time of year and this season seems to stir them from slumber. As I carried the Christmas decorations up from the basement to begin to ‘trim’ the house I thought about the richness of the season. And with that, memories of my people tumbled around my memory. Nostalgia overwhelmed me.

My father died when I was 27. My mom died when I was 39. My husband died 3 years ago. Each of these people were pivotal in my life at its various stages. How can I unpack Christmas decorations and treasures without being awash with nostalgia? The waves of nostalgia can bring smiles and tears in equal measure and often simultaneously.

There is an old Christmas tune that begins with the words, “Christmas makes me feel emotional”. Today as we taped the music for the remaining Christmas seasons I could feel the tug of my heart strings as we sang the beloved carols and I remembered singing them with my beloved beside me, his beautiful bass voice singing harmony. On the weekend when I baked my Christmas cake, I pictured in my mind’s eye, my mom’s old cookbook with the splattered and spotted page from which she read her recipe for Carrot Pudding – always the ending to our Christmas dinner.

The funny thing about nostalgia is it is both comforting and painful. Longing and sentiment can salve and hurt at the same time. And I think, my friends, that is part of the power and draw of Christmas. It holds before us the sorrow and the joy. The Bethlehem story is filled with sorrow and joy woven together to spin out the depth of the human experience. A baby. An unreasonable census. A threatening political oppressor. Shepherds singing and dancing in delight. The struggle of a long journey. The joy of a brilliant star. The story is told to remind us that, yes, life is filled with extremes and that God is in the midst of all of it. I am grateful for that assurance.