In Anticipation of a Christmas Carol

An Uncle’s Christmas Prayer

To Jeb (when you’re a little older)

It is lucky for us that things are not always what they seem,

The world seems so big, and certainly you could never walk around it,

But really it is not as big as our minds

Because we can reach out with our thoughts to the farthest star without even trying

And quicker than a wink my thoughts can leave these beautiful snow mountains of Switzerland and fly across the ocean and go right through the door to where you are

Sitting on the floor with crumpled Christmas paper around you

And the tree brightly spreading happiness

And your Mother and Daddy smiling and smiling

As if they shared some great secret.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.

I don’t mean just very nice, but full of wonder:

The suspense when you count: Just four more days till Christmas.

The surprise when you watch all the fancy decorations suddenly light up

The anxious-feeling when you try to guess what you will get and hope so hard that you won’t be forgotten

The slightly scared feeling when you’re tucked in bed

And you look out the window at the pale winter moon

And you strain to hear sleigh bells and reindeer’s hoofs.

I hope you have a beautiful Christmas.

I hope that everything outside and inside will be full of beauty,

And even the gentle gray rain can be beautiful.

And Christmas has its own special music so that it sounds beautiful

And it smells clean and fresh like fir and pine

And your presents are new and exciting

And everybody has an inside glow that makes them beautiful, too.

I hope you have a lovely Christmas,

Not just pretty, but full of love.

I hope your friends send you Christmas cards

Especially if they have to draw and color them themselves

And that your brothers and sisters will like you a lot

And even let you play with their toys,

And that you will save a piece of candy for somebody

Who doesn’t have as many people to love him as you do.

I hope you will have a good Christmas

That you are good to everybody and that everybody is good to you

That nothing happens to hurt your feelings,

That you will get good things you will want to take care of,

That you will like your Christmas dinner

Not only because your food is good, but because the family is together

And finally I hope that all your Christmases will be like this one –

Full of wonder and beauty and love and goodness.

May your wonder never leave you, but may it swell and search

Higher than the sky and deeper than the sea and beyond the far horizon.

May you look for what is beautiful and treasure it when you find it

In the glory of a golden sunset or a crisp night filled with stars.

The melody made by the sound of music or the murmur of a spoken rhyme.

If you look you will see beauty and if you love it you will have it always.

And when you see how happy others feel when they love you

May you too find happiness in loving others,

And may you learn that you enjoy a fine thing twice as much

When you share it with a friend.

May you find your pleasure in good things and in good people,

Expect to find the best in them and you will,

Feel sorry for the person who is bad because inside he is very sad,

And when you do acquire something deep down good may you hunger for something still better.

And so if you go through life, from one Christmas to the next

Searching for truth and beauty and love and goodness

It may take years, it may take all your life

But someday you will be surprised and very pleased

To find all that you have been seeking

Not in a manger two thousand years away

But, more wonderful, in the manger of your heart!

And then suddenly everything will make sense, and every day will be Christmas.

And what could be a nicer present than a new baby sister? (or even brother)

Seriously, I hope by now congratulations are in order and mine are most heartfelt.

Uncle) Ed

(1962)