Silent Night

I"m entering the "Scrooge" phase of Christmas today. I go thught this every year.  By the time I get to the middle of December, I have been into Christmas for almost a month. By the time I get to the big day, it starts to feel like the dirty dishes from a Thanksgiving meal. We've glutted ourselves on materialism and candy so badly that all apetites have been sated, and all I can think of is getting over it.
On an old Saturday Night Live  sketch,  Father Guido Sarducci suggested that we should have "big" Christmas and "little" Christmas Every other year we should have a merry "little" Christmas, without all the presence, decoratons, etc.  It's not a bad idea, really.  Once, I'd like to get through the holidays with my checkbook, diet, and sanity intact. 
It's not that I hate Christmas, I dont. It just that Christmas gets buried under a pile of wrapping and tinsel every year, until it becomes hard to find it. 
What's Chrismtas for, anyway.
At it's core, Christmas is a spiritual exercise.  It's an opportunity to get closer to God by meditating on th comng of the Messiah. 
Christmas is the fulcrum f hstory.  Its the moment when everything changed.  The miracle of s it that it reminds us that every moment could be a new moment of changing  Jesus can enter into any waking mmen, and transform us. 
It begins in silence.  Then there was a baby's cry.  No one recognized what was happening at first, but soon they did.  Wide-eyed shepherds appeared ut of nowhere with a fantastic story of angels.  Oriental mystics appeared, babbling about a star. Then there was more silence, silence for a long time, before all heaven broke loose. 
I seek out the quiet moments of life.  There seem to be so few of them.  I am listening for that baby to cry again.  I am waiting for the moment when the Kingdom of God comes in my life and my world. 
If only Christmas were the moment it was meant to be, a moment for quiet listening and hearng.
This year, I've enjoyed listening to a Christmas album by Sting.  I head him speak about it on NPR one morning.  Though I'm sure he's not a Christian, he said something that stuck in my mind.  He said that the winter season was a moment for reflection.  The cold weather drives us into ourselves,  helping to remind us of the possibilities that there are. 
I would rather think that Christmas reminds us of the possibilities that God can bring forth. 
If only it could be this and not an excuse for indulgence. God,  give me a silent night again!