Christmas in March???

I had just gotten done working out, slow start to my day…I know.  Out of the shower clean, chicken breast for my lunch smelling so yummy as it cooked on the stove and my fingers immersed in warm bubbles.  As I washed dishes I looked across the backyard and into the neighbor’s.  After years of the house behind us with wild weeds and no yard finally it is getting done and I have enjoyed watching our local nursery in town doing it.  Gets my green thumb humming so to say.  So peaceful.  In the background I had a Christmas album playing, life was sweet…wait, did I just say Christmas?  I know, I know.  If anyone hates winter no one does more than me, so why would someone who has been reveling in the 50 to 60 degree weather that we have been having be listening to Christmas music, you ask?  I’ll tell you.

Now I’m not one of those crazies who has “Jingle Bells” and “Silent Night” blaring through my house on a perfectly delectable spring day.  I’m insane, but not that insane.  It started with me finishing up scripture study time with a feeling or need for the spirit to continue.  What did I do, go to my trusty iPhone and bring up my playlist.  Right now my spiritual playlist has been gone over so many times that even on random order I can tell you what is coming up next.  Boring.  I need to make a new playlist, but since I have upgraded computers I have been too lazy to get my phone synced.  I don’t want to lose everything and start from square one on my music list.  So what did that leave me with for today?  Some bouncy dance music, good for getting my groove on but not what I had in mind, a karaoke song that I have for Jenny and a Christmas Album. 

First instinct was play the same old same old boring playlist and then the thought, why not Christmas music?  Why not?  Now I can almost see Jason rolling his eyes as he reads this and going, “Really.”  But this album only has a few traditional Christmas songs on it, those I promptly skipped through I might add, and the rest are just some very sweet songs about Christ’s birth.  Why shouldn’t that be the music that we listen to all year?

I have a favorite song.  One that no matter how many times that I hear it I can still be completely brought to tears…”I Just Knew,” by Cherie Call.  I went to a little very up close and personal concert that she had once in Midway when she asked for song requests.  I asked for that song as we sat in the very pleasant summer weather on the very soft green lawn.  And she smiled sweet as could be, because that is what Cherie is, one of the nicest people that you will ever meet, and explained to me that that was a Christmas song.  Nope, not that evening did I get my “I Just Knew,” fix (which by the way if you haven’t ever heard that song you need to.  It’s beautiful).  I wondered then as I wonder now, why is that song a Christmas song?  It’s not “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem” or “We Three Kings” so what makes it a Christmas song?  Is it merely because it talks of Christ’s Birth and if so are we only allowed to listen to songs about Christ’s Birth on Christmas.  In that same line of thinking are we only supposed to talk about Christ’s Birth at Christmas?  Only celebrate the miracle of it at Christmas?

One year for Christmas my amazing hubby Jason bought me a Willow Tree Nativity Set.  I always wanted one and he was so sweet, getting it ahead of time so that I could enjoy it the whole Christmas season and having a beautiful Alder shelf made with the exact measurements of the nativity.  I loved it and when Christmas ended I almost cried having to put it away.  The rest of the year I struggled coming up with things to put on that beautiful shelf but nothing, and I mean nothing looked right up there, after all it was made specially down to the square inch for that nativity. 

When Christmas came round again I pulled those nativity pieces out and put them back on that shelf and finally the shelf looked whole again and the room did too.  So when Christmas ended that year, I didn’t take those nativity pieces down, instead I did my “Christ Wall” as I call it.  Picture of Christ and one of his mother Mary holding him when he was a baby.  Somehow my spirit had been trying to tell me all year long that I shouldn’t forget Christ’s miraculous birth and I shouldn’t put it away for another year.  Very few people come to my house and not notice that even in March I still have the nativity up, you’ll find it there in August too, but almost all of those who see it tell me how beautiful it is and how we all should have a “Christ Wall” all year long too.

So yes, as I thought about that today, I thought that maybe it would be okay if I listened for a little while to the music that spoke of his sweet birth.  How can I not have a home and a heart filled with absolute peace when my mind is picturing a sweet baby cuddled close to his mother as the rest of the world gave a sigh of gratitude when finally their Redeemer had come?  I know that it’s March, and I know that my daffodils are winking back at me across my flower beds in beautiful spring warmth, and although that is part of the reason that my heart is still and sweet and oh so happy, but more importantly it is because I am thinking of him today, and grateful for the birth of My King today and looking at those beautiful flowers and this beautiful weather and knowing that He is the one who sent it to me, because He loves me.  Today I will not forget that, and I will not forget Him, even if to someone else I may seem like “The Crazy Christmas Lady” today.