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For years, Christmas to me was a twinkling tree, snow, Nat King Cole music, pajamas and the cozy, quiet night when we could stay up late and watch the Santa-tracker on the news.

It was warm, family-filled and magical, but the figures that filled our nativity scene were little more than that: figures.

Then, in my junior year of high school, a friend and I sat in the chapel of my parish, St. Ambrose in Latham, a few weeks before the holiday.

My friend said she wanted to play for me the song "O Holy Night" - but before she would play it, she told me to "really listen" to one line in particular: "Then He appeared, and the soul felt its worth."

"This is what Christmas is about," she told me. "This is what the Incarnation meant."

That moment changed the reason I anticipated and the way I experienced the great holiday forever. I went home and played the song on repeat for the rest of the night.

"Then He appeared and the soul felt its worth": God became man and by doing so, man once again had hope to be with God.

I began to imagine the instant of Christ's birth and the invisible ramifications that shook the heavens. I saw the figures in my nativity scene in a whole new light: the joy the angels must have had...the overwhelming love and fear that Mary and Joseph must have experienced...the wonder of the shepherds to see a Savior born in a stable...the weakness of the Magi.

I began to understand the greatness of the holiday I once confused with a Norman Rockwell painting. It was a quiet night on earth, but my soul was given meaning and humanity was given a reason to hope.

(12/23/10)[[In-content Ad]]

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