... And all that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. Luke 2:18.
For a number of years, my husband and I have traveled to the North Georgia mountains in December to celebrate our anniversary and to see trappings of the Christmas season. Our children always ask us what we do during these few days. Our answer each year is noticeably similar. We drive the mountain roads to see now visible sights which are hidden when the mountain forests are in full leaf. We feast at restaurants featuring Southern cuisine at its best . We walk the park trails and enjoy the cold, brisk air. Each year, we pretty much travel the same roads, but each year, inevitably, we encounter something new.
We agree with artist Andrew Wyeth who said, “I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.”
For the past several years, we’ve camped at Vogel State Park and participated in its tree lighting ceremony on the second Saturday of December. Year before last, rains chased us away soon after we arrived for the fun. Although the temperature already had dropped well below freezing this past year, we stayed for all of the festivities similar to tree lightings across the country. However, this event comes with a twist unique to long standing celebrations in the mountains.
Tractor-pulled hayrides carted visitors from the parking lot to the playground area. However, we walked the short distance from the campground to the tree site to the strains of a mountain string band with fiddles, guitars, banjos and a bass. The musicians were strumming and singing traditional mountain tunes intertwined with old familiar carols. Mountain music has a sound all its own. And sitting around a roaring open fire, we were soon patting our toes in time with the cadence. Before the band ended its gig, a four-year-old was dancing to the beat in front of the truck bed serving as a stage. With the applause, he took a bow. This band was followed by a church handbell choir ringing in the season. A soloist, a pianist fighting frostbite on her fingers, group singing, a reader and greetings from park officials completed the program.
Santa Claus drew a steady line of smallfry to his booth as volunteers served homemade cookies with hot chocolate and hot apple cider. Several hundred people crowded around three roaring bonfires. Some of us sat on the bales of hay placed strategically near the fires. A quick count determined that while most of the crowd was from nearby Blairsville, others had traveled from as far away as Germany, Sweden and Italy. Why, merely traveling from South Georgia almost made us natives.
As the sun set in the West and a crescent moon rose in the Eastern sky, park visitors stomped their numbed feet and inched closer to the fires. With dusk, the temperature dropped noticeably.
All the while, a 30-foot tall living blue spruce stood as a silent sentry over the merrymaking. But then the time came to flip the switch and light this tree. A collective gasp rippled throughout the audience as the tree burst into a gigantic kaleidoscope of many colored lights. For the years that we’ve joined the park celebration, the tree has always twinkled with all white lights. We, along with most everyone else, expected the same glittering sight. However, this year’s addition of blue and red and gold to the traditional white coated the tree like bushels of sparkling confetti in multi colors dropped from the clouds. From the golden star on the treetop to the bulbs on the lowest branches near the ground, this massive tree glowed, and we all stared in wonder.
The tree was donated to the park in memory of an employee. Originally planted near the visitor center, it would not grow. Eventually, it was moved to its present location deeper into the park and it has flourished. Sometimes, change is not only good, but necessary.
Habit directs much of our lives. Memory experts tell us that routine is a necessary condition for us to create order in our lives and to be productive. Likewise, we like tradition when it comes to celebrating holidays like Christmas. We tend to frown on those who attempt to introduce new trends into our old festivities. We listen to the old familiar carols and gradually over the years, allow the newer tunes to inch their way into our collective psyche. Regardless of it nutritional status, we want our traditional foods, even the oft maligned fruit cake. Annually, we repeat the customs because we want to recapture the sense of awe and wonder that we experienced as children. Yet, more often than not we find ourselves as disappointed as those children who, after opening a mound of gifts, pout, “Is this all?”
However, it is among the traditional, the ordinary, the usual, the sameness that we can make new discoveries. When we look and really see, when we listen and really hear, the familiar message of the Christ Child rings new. Dr. Joel Heck in his Advent devotional series “The Grand Miracle,” writes, “God so often surprises us by doing big things in little places, by resisting the proud and exalting the humble, by choosing ordinary people to do great things, and in general, by doing the unexpected.”
And while we cling to our sameness out of fear of the unknown, it is in the unexpected, like a king sleeping in a manger, that we find new blessings and wonderment lighting our way.
May the wonders of this holy season bless your new year.
2011
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