A Christmas Miracle by Rev. Alaina Damewood

"A Winters Day" by FaceMePLS 

from The Hague, The Netherlands 

 courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Winters_Day.jpg?uselang=nb

It started out a cold winter day in 1991 after several months of soldiers coming home from war. Some of the families affected by loved ones who had died in a local area gathers for a prayer remembrance service at a local courthouse, and then planned to go to the town’s graveyard in Lewisburg, WV, remembrance service to honor other fallen soldiers of the civil war wattle that had taken place in town. The townsfolk and the civil war re-enactors headed over to the death angel statue, located at the center of the grave yard.

They started to say a prayer for remembrance of the fallen soldiers when someone heard a laughing, as if a little girl was playing in the graveyard, and thinking it was one of the children of a family that came today, he stopped service to just to tell the group to keep the small children quiet during service. 

The group looked at the service leader as if he were crazy, for there were no children in the graveyard. The service leader thought it strange and kept wondering to himself if he just heard the girl who died in the school bus crash, or if was even the Angel of Death, laughing and giggling at him and everyone else in the graveyard. 

After giving the prayer and the group leaving, he went to the grave of the little girl and the death angel and left a giant jaw breaker. Since he would be going through town tomorrow, he decided he would check on the candy. So he returned. Once again, he heard the little girl laughing and giggling at him.

“Is anyone there?” He asked as he walked up to her grave. To his surprise, the candy was gone, and in the snow by the gravestone on top of the grave “thank you” with a smiley face. He checked on the death angel’s grave next to find the candy gone. He thought to himself, “Well, small miracles take place when you least think of them happening. So I made their Christmas day.” 

The next day, he went over to the local caretaker of the graveyard and asked him if he had heard the voice of the little girl or the death angel before, and why it was called the “death angel”. “Yes,” the man replied. “There are two girls graves in the graveyard. One is the death angel, who when someone kisses it they die. The other is the little girl over there who died in the bus crash. Why do you ask?” 

The service leader replied, “did you go by either of their graves yesterday morning and remove some candy I left at their graves or write anything on near the little girl’s grave?” The caretaker smiled. “Oh, they are playing again with people. No, I did not write anything. So you’re the one who made their Christmas morning. I could hear them playing and laughing as if someone made them happy.” 

The service leader thought to himself, “ A true Christmas miracle it must have been.”

Why do people feel so confused over whether to have a Christmas tree or not?

Our Christmas tree at night by Dean Beeler 18 December 2004

Courtesy of wikimedia commons

For those who do not know me, I am Reverend Alaina Damewood, and I have been studying religions for more than eighteen years. One of my favorite areas of study is the myths around the holiday traditions.

For all who have a Christmas tree up in your house at this time of the year and have wondered how it fits into the holiday or why we use the tree to represent the birth of Christ, we must go back and look at the history and the heritage behind how our calendar was created.

The calendar we use in today’s time is based off the one created by the Catholic Church of Rome in a time period where the church was dealing with issues related to the pagans in their lifetime.
But how is that relate to our holidays? During the time period in question, the pagan traditions of the early Roman Empire had four major and four minor holidays.

The minor holidays marked the solstices for the seasonal year in celebration for being one step closer to the end of the year. The spring solstice celebrated the growth of the harvest. The summer solstice celebrated the beginning of the summer season. The fall solstice celebrated the change of summer to fall and the time of saving food for the coming winter. The winter solstice celebrated the coming of the new season. We recognize those on the calendar as the days which mark the beginning of spring, summer, fall and winter.

The major holidays were Beltine, which was celebrated for the warm weather that came from the change of spring to summer, Östra, the goddess of fertility, the time mother earth creates life from animals to people, samhine, the day of the dead or what we know as Halloween, and Yule, the end of the calendar year, also the birth and death of the oak king in winter to be reborn in the spring.

The Catholic Church of early Rome recognized the traditions of the pagans practiced in their time, and to get them to convert over to the religion of the Catholic Church, they decided to design their calendar to have the same celebrations.

The most famous example of this is Christmas, the day of Christ’s birth when Mary found out she was pregnant at the feast from the immaculate conception on December 8th. Because the Catholic church could not determine Christ’s actual birthday, they made it the same as the pagans Yule celebration and then adapt the celebration of the death and birth of the oak king for a Christian purpose. Since the burning of the log would not work for celebrating the birthday of Christ, the church stole a portion of a ceremony from the pagan faith again to represent the Norish day of the dead. 

In the same way family members would decorate their tree with ornaments to represent memories of their dead loved ones, Christmas is done the same way, except hanging the ornaments and giving presents to each other is to represent Christ’s birthday.
 
And since then, this has been the on-going tradition for the season to show respect to God’s birth and death no matter which religion you view it from. Whether you decide to put up a tree though, that is up to you. 

                                

Sheena's Christmas Angel

When I was a kid my family lived in Connecticut. In our community there were no rich people. My family however, had it better then most. Three doors down from our house lived a family that was not on welfare or anything, but I can say at the end of each month when all their bills and rent were paid there was no money left over at all and some months there was not enough money to pay rent, all the bills and buy food.

In that house lived a family with two kids, Jason which was 12 years old and my best friend and Sheena which was 5. Now, I remember one-year things were so thigh that they had no money for Christmas. I still remember how Jason’s Mother borrowed $20.00 from my Mom so she could buy her children each one small Christmas gift. Since Jason’s Dad could not afford a Christmas tree he went out and found a big branch cut from another tree, put a string of lights on it and an angel on the top.

On Christmas Eve afternoon Jason and Sheena’s Mom sat in the living room of their very modest home looking at the poor excuse of a Christmas tree crying because she wanted Christmas to be special for her kids. She was so sad and heart broken.

Sheena walked up to her Mother and crawled up in her lap and gave her Mom a big hug asking her why she was crying and her Mom replied because we have no food left and I wanted this to be a Happy Christmas. Upon hearing that, Sheena told her Mother that she shouldn’t cry and that this would be the best Christmas ever. Her Mother asked Sheena how she could know that and Sheena replied that the angel told her so. Shocked by what she had just heard Sheena’s asked her what angel and Sheena pointed to the so-called Christmas tree and said that angel mommy. Not wanting to discourage Sheena, her Mother forced a smile and said that’s right honey; this will be the best Christmas ever because I have you and you’re brother and daddy.

Later that evening when the whole neighbor hood was at midnight Christmas church Service Sheena and her family sat through the entire service as well as did the other neighbors that attended the service. When it was over Sheena had fallen asleep and her Mother carried her out to the old car they had and Sheena’s brother and dad followed.

When they arrived home Sheen’s Mom walked into the house to find that in the kitchen there was food. So much food that they could eat for a week. There were pies and cakes all sorts of vegetables and milk and juice. Also in the fridge was a huge turkey just waiting to be cooked in the oven. Shocked and surprised, she took Sheena to her room and put her to bed and returned to the kitchen and her son and husband stood there in awe.

They all three walked into the living room and found a 6ft tree all decorated and with plenty of gifts under the tree. Sheen’s Mom remembered what little Sheena had said about the angel and, as Sheena’s mom looked up at the angel, she saw a glow leave the top of the tree and float to Sheena’s room and stay there. Sheena’s Mother began to cry tears of joy. No one ever found out where the tree, gifts and, food came from. So, you see my friends there are really angels, always looking out for us and protecting us. We just have to learn how to let them into our lives.

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