The First Noel

We missed church this morning. Thanks to another snowstorm and yet another earache we stayed home. There were pretty much whiteout conditions all day (more about that tomorrow) so we were playing it safe by staying home. I was really sad to miss this Sunday. I like the Sunday before Christmas. I like the Christmas Eve service too.

Adam was probably breathing a sigh of relief. After all, he had no tears to wipe up with his scarf this morning during the singing of certain Christmas carols.

Since Adam and I have been married we’ve spent all six Christmas holidays with his family. I have longed to be with my family and spend a Christmas showing him our Bahamian traditions. I’d love to take him to Junkanoo, to see the Police Band play, to a Christmas Cantata and to the Live Manger scene at church. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult, yea, impossible, to get time off at this time of the year when you work for a certain company. We’ve never been able to spend that Christmas in the Bahamas.

The first year of our marriage we went to church on Christmas Eve just like we always do now. I love Christmas carols. I could sing them with the best of the best. I can sing the harmony and all the special do da’s that go with them. We started to sing Joy to the World at the end of the service and I cried my little eyes out. Of course, Adam wanted to know what was wrong. He understood missing my family and was very gentle and comforting about the whole situation.

I figured that each year being away from my family at Christmastime would get easier. Each year we’d build on our own traditions and our Christmas holidays in our family would become special and the norm.

But I think each year gets harder. I long to be with my family more. I keep wishing that I had just that one more Christmas with my parents (they wont’ be around forever). Now that we have children, I want the boys to see what Christmas is like in the Bahamas. I don’t want Junaknoo, the police band and other items to just be stories that I tell them.

This Christmas Eve will be a bit different. Ryan’s Godparents have asked us to spend Christmas with them. Instead of being at church we will be on the road (provided the forecast is correct). On Christmas morning we will be in church. I will be prepared. Not only will I have Adam’s scarf to wipe my tears into, I will also have a package of tissues, used especially for the carol The First Noel.

Why The First Noel? Well, the year we were married I started working on a family history book. It was about my dad’s family and what their life was like for them growing up. My Aunt Gloria wrote to me about memories she had of her father (my Pa Ernest, whom I never met) while growing up. In it she wrote, “He also enjoyed a drink occasionally, and I remember once during a midnight Christmas Eve carol service at the Anglican church he staggered in and sat down. He wasn't the only man who had had one drink too many, and the man behind him leaned forward during a lull in the singing of The First Noel and said to him in a voice all the church could hear, ‘You hear that ol' Ern, no hell, no hell.’"

I can easily make it through the first verse and maybe the first “Noel, noel” before choking up. I know it’s a silly thing to choke up on, but it’s a memory, one connected to my family who I miss dearly during the Christmas season.

There are other Christmas carols that make me tear up, all for different reasons. They are all associated with different stories that remind me of my childhood. Like I can hear my brother singing “While Shepherds washed their socks at night…” Once we were singing O Holy Night and I was wearing socks with many holes in them. Silent Night is the first song I learned all the signs to in sign language. Once in Royal David’s City is a super favorite of mine. While working at the Christian Book Shop, we sang Christmas carols before devotions and we could really mess some up like Angles from the Realms of Glory.

Christmas carols are a big part of my Christmas. I love to sing these songs that tell of the birth of Christ.

While I anticipate celebrating that First Noel with my children, husband and dear friends, I will be missing my family. I’ll be missing those good old times with friends and co-workers too.

Maybe next year we’ll spend Christmas together. And without tears I’ll be able to sing that final verse of this beautiful carol (which I think sums up why we celebrate Christmas).

“Then let us all with one accord, sing praises to our Heavenly Lord
Who hath made Heaven and earth of naught and with his blood mankind has bough.

“Noel, noel, noel, noel. Born is the King of Israel!”