Gestalt Media recently asked the writers associated with this indie publisher to share a favorite Christmas memory or tradition. While it is not really a “dark thought,” it seems appropriate in this Yuletide season to share my memory here.

   A favorite Christmas tradition is one from my childhood that I’m afraid to say is performed inconsistently now in my latter years—and that is the practice of piling as many family members as possible into one car and driving around to look at neighborhood Christmas lights.

   As a child this journey would always include a trip to a Baptist church near our home that performed an outdoor nativity scene with live actors and real animals. Thank God it wasn’t ours because my family was very active in our church and I’m sure I would have been drafted into service if we’d been members there. And I’m sorry but the last place a kid wants to be on Christmas Eve is at church.

   We would pull up into the parking lot behind the church, my father thoughtfully cutting off our headlights, just like you do if you arrived late at a drive-in movie, and then were ushered into an available parking place by an invisible attendant with a glowing flashlight that hovered mysteriously before us in the darkness. You might arrive, of course at any point in the continuing drama, so it was quite possible to arrive with the shepherds already paying their respects to the new-born king in the stable, watch them work their way back in the darkness to their home base where the fire was, and then watch as the story began again. 

   It started of course, with shepherds herding some live sheep around a fire who were, as expected, surprised by the sudden glowing appearance of a choir of angels that were standing within a well-made framework of angel wings on the roof of the church. I always hoped that just once on one of those Christmas Eves that one of the “angels” would not show up, and there would be a lonely pair of wings with an ominous gap between them floating eerily amidst the choir. That would have been so cool—a ghost angel! I’m sad to say that never happened.

   Once the shepherds had all recovered from the shock of the arrival of the heavenly host, a recording blared out, a voice that we came to look forward to each year, speaking the lines for the head angel from the gospel of Luke.

   This was the highlight of the show, for my mother loved to hear the voice of this particular angel. The speaker was a woman with a very strong Southern accent and my mother just found it very funny to have a Southern angel.

   Now that I think back on it, it was quite remarkable in the late 50’s and early sixties which is when this family tradition occurred, for a Baptist church to have had a female angel—and to let her be the head angel, no less. I guarantee you that at that time that same “angel” would not have been allowed to be a deacon in that church, and it was quite likely she would not have been allowed to teach Sunday School, all because she was a woman.

   “Feah not,” the voice rang out. “For be-hold. I bring you tidings of great jo-y. (Two syllables.) For unto you, is bawn this day in the city of Day-vid, a Sav-yah, which is Christ, the Lor-ud. And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddlin’ clothes, lyin’ in a manguh.” It was a tad ironic for my mother to find this humorous since she had an accent that could put Scarlet O’Hara to shame.

   Once the shepherds had recovered from their trauma of seeing this celestial host, a recording of Handel’s Messiah blared forth, and the poor angels shivered on the roof as their robes blew in the breeze. When the song ended, the lights went off on the angels and the shepherds gathered flaming torches, leaving some poor guy wearing a robe and Converse sneakers to tend the remaining sheep, and trekked through the darkness on their long journey of about five yards to the stable which suddenly lit up upon their arrival, where they found you-know-who…excuse me…You-Know-Who in the manger. It was always a matter of debate in the car whether they found a live infant or a doll. I personally was more interested in the livestock and thought it was cool that they definitely had a real donkey in the stable. I bet Mary and Joseph were less thrilled.

   After a proper amount of oohing and ahhing, the shepherds extinguished their torches, the stable light went out, and they walked in darkness back to their fire. We would then back out of our parking space, being careful not to turn on our headlights of course—nothing ruins a live nativity more than an accidental spotlight—and resume our tour of Christmas lights.

   I rarely see any nativity scenes these days, but I do try to round up as many family members as I can for a ride through the neighborhoods looking for the best home displays. But whenever I see a nativity scene in someone’s front yard, especially one with shepherds, I always roll down my window and call out, “Feah not! For be-hold, I bring you tidings of great jo-y…