I don’t know if it’s my imagination, or if it’s because Christmas ads and decorations began showing up way before Thanksgiving, but whatever it is, people seem to be making a bigger fuss about Christmas this year. For me, that’s a good thing. As a Christian, I love Christmas and all it signifies. As an author, I’m also noticing a lot of Christmas-themed books, and while my Egypt series is not based on Christmas, books 1 and 2 carry some Christmas scenes that will give you a glimpse of how my characters, and people in Trinidad where the story is set, spend Christmas.
Here is an excerpt from In The Wilderness: Book 2 of the Egypt series:
At last it’s Christmas Eve. Miss Lucy and her daughter have gone home, and we sit in the living-room admiring the Christmas tree and the decorations and sipping egg nog. Below the tree is an assortment of boxes wrapped in shiny gift paper and tied with pretty bows. The television shows women in beautiful frilly skirts and blouses with flowers in their hair, singing and dancing. The songs are in Spanish and they call them parang.
I’m holding Junior on my lap. June sits on the rug at my feet, her head resting against my legs. Junior tugs at her hair.
“Ouch!” She holds her head, and he squeals.
Across from us, Chrissy, seated on her father, also squeals and drops her rattle.
“Did we do this in Egypt Village?” I ask.
June turns her head. “Do what?”
“Sit around the tree and drink egg nog and watch TV.”
“I don’t think we ever had a tree. And we didn’t have a TV.”
No tree? It’s such a beautiful thing. I can’t understand why everyone wouldn’t have one. And no TV either? “We couldn’t afford it?”
June shrugs. “I don’t know.”
That’s another thing I don’t understand. She never wants to talk about our childhood and Egypt Village.
Junior takes another tug at her hair and she sidles away. “Come here, you.” She lifts him off my lap.
I turn to Miss Stewart. “Did you always do this?”
She smiles. “Yes, we did.”
I look at Mr. Bowen.
He nods. “We did, too. And you know what else we did?”
Everyone looks at him. “We sang Christmas carols and told the story of the Savior’s birth.”
“I didn’t know that,” his wife says.
He gazes at her. “Remember I came from a Christian home. When we lived in New York, we went to church on Christmas Eve night.”
“Was it snowing?” June asks.
“Sometimes, but we kids loved it. We would all bundle up in our coats, hats and gloves and sing carols while Dad drove us to church. When we came here, it took us a while before we found a church, so Mom made egg nog and we sat around and did the Christmas thing.”
“The Christmas thing?” June asks.
“Yeah. We sat around the crèche and told the Christmas story.”
That touches me. We don’t have a crèche, but maybe we can do the Christmas thing too.
Feeling shy, I ask, “Can we do that now?”
“Why not?” Miss Stewart gets up and turns off the TV. “Where do we start?”
June bounces Junior on her leg. “Let’s start with ‘Once upon a time.’”
Mr. Bowen picks up Chrissy’s rattle. “Okay, here’s how we did it. One person says a few lines of the Christmas story, then we sing a verse of a carol. Then the next person picks up the story from where the last person left off, we sing another verse and so on.”
“Sounds great,” Miss Stewart says. “I’ll go first. Once upon a time there was a man named Joseph, and he had a wife named Mary who was pregnant.”
June puts her hand up. “Joseph and Mary journeyed to Bethlehem in order to be taxed, in keeping with a decree from the emperor Cesar Augustus.”
“You forgot the song,” I say.
June slaps her forehead. “I’m sorry.” She clears her throat. “Silent night …”
We all join in the singing. When we finish the first verse, she repeats the lines she’d said, then everyone looks at me. I smile as I continue the story. “While they were there, Mary realized that it was time for the baby to be born.”
We sing another verse then Mr. Bowen continues, “Joseph tries to find a room in an inn so Mary could give birth, but he found none.”
We continue like this until Mr. Bowen ends with the angels telling the shepherds, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and goodwill toward men.”
I look down at Junior now asleep on June’s lap. I think of the Baby Jesus who came into this world as small and innocent as this baby even though He was God Himself. What a beautiful story!
June interrupts my thoughts. “Sister, I’m impressed that you remember the Christmas story so well.”
I turn to her. “Some things I’ll always remember, but the things I want to remember, I don’t.”
There you have it. Christmas with Marva, June and the Bowen’s. To read more about the Christmas celebrations with the Bowen’s, why not pick up a copy of the book on sale for only 99c. this weekend. And drop me a line and let me know how you spend Christmas at your house.
