The Christmas season, especially, is rooted in Franciscan spirituality. In 1223, St. Francis created a live Nativity at Greccio, a commune in Italy. You’ll find an article about its significance on page 28. Centuries later, I marvel at its production value. But it wasn’t designed to be a novelty. Francis simply wanted to bring the miracle of Christ’s birth to average folks. And that kind of boots-on-the-ground spiritual outreach lives on in the form of the magazine you hold in your hands right now. 

For Francis, this season isn’t one to celebrate quietly but boldly, lovingly, and, if possible, with farm animals. And while we at Franciscan Media cannot provide you with the livestock needed for a proper live Nativity, we still wish each of you a blessed holiday season. 

See you in 2024!  

While the tradition of a live Nativity scene dates back to 1223, St. Francis’ approach to the incarnation and the birth of Jesus remains revolutionary and spiritually transformative for today. 

Years ago, I had a beagle named Gracie, a sweet but neurotic dog who created havoc when left alone for long periods of time. Her anxiety became a problem for me when neighbors complained about her barking. So I called upon my dog-loving friends who enjoyed an occasional “dog-fix” as dog sitters. I was deeply grateful when one of them was available to hang out with a cute beagle whom they affectionately dubbed “the love sponge.” It was a win-win situation. 

One faithful dog sitter was a young graduate student who would come over when she could, do a little homework, pay a lot of attention to Gracie, and apparently listen to Christmas music regardless of the month or season of the year. I discovered her musical preferences one night in July when I returned home and discovered the cassette of Bing Crosby’s Merry Christmas album in the stereo. 

At the time, I thought it was quaint that this young woman loved Christmas so much. But lately, I recognize the tender wisdom this young student harbored in her heart to offer companionship to a fearful dog who needed presence, to provide peace of mind to a professor who needed help keeping peace with her neighbors who complained about barking dogs, and to surround herself with music that offered the comfort and solace of the Incarnation. 

This memory came to me when I was preparing a lecture on the role of laity in the Franciscan tradition. As part of the lecture, I thought I would tell the story of Greccio—but with a new twist. 

The Forgotten Laity 

Having studied and prayed at the fresco in the cave chapel at Greccio, I knew that I wanted to zero in on that group of laypeople standing behind Francis, adoring the Christ Child. I anchored my thoughts on the goal of putting a spotlight on that mostly anonymous group of laity led by John and Alticama Velita, the local nobleman and his wife who were prominent and close enough to Francis to be mentioned by name in the sources. 

I jotted down all the pages in the Early Documents of Francis of Assisi on which the word Greccio appeared. I wanted to read different accounts of the story, but I also wanted to understand how Francis came to know and love the place and its inhabitants. 

I learned that Francis often passed through the Rieti Valley with its many hamlets and villages and found a special connection with the people of Greccio because of their faith. With this little glimpse into the fervent faith of the laity of the time, we can appreciate how much ordinary men and women—much like you and me—cared for their faith. They attended church services as a community, but the people of Greccio are known to have further nurtured their devotions in their homes. 

Through their shared devotional practices and liturgies, they also created a community knitted together through faith, perseverance, and presence. Francis perceived this special quality of faith and devotion when he first visited, perhaps as early as 1209 on his travels to and from Rome for the first time. 

Fleshing out my reading from the early sources, I came to appreciate that Francis’ attraction to the place and his sense of comfort in Greccio came from its remote and wild location. Francis was willing to accept a place for a simple hermitage from his wealthy friend John only because of the latter’s own deep faith. Far from boasting of his elite titles and expansive landholdings, John viewed his social standing without much attachment and offered Francis a place on which a humble hermitage could be built. As the story goes, the exact location was selected by a youth who flung a torch across a ravine; it settled on the hillside where the present hermitage is located. This became a place where Francis gravitated to be in solitude and prayer. 

The Need for Solitude

Francis’ love of solitude came up over and over in the sources I read of his visits to Greccio. So often, we can think of Francis as that joy-filled, youthful troubadour, but even more often, Francis persistently and actively sought to be alone. Solitude is where Francis cultivated his relationship with Christ. 

By 1223, when the more famous story of Francis at Greccio took place, Francis was experiencing the weight of disappointment and frustration over the developing institutionalization of the brotherhood. Added to his emotional suffering was the significant physical pain caused by his chronic eye condition, known today as trachoma. Having treated his body with a fair amount of disdain in the name of penance, he arrived in Greccio physically weak and likely emotionally drained. He was making his way back to Assisi from a trip to Rome, where the Rule of 1223 was approved. His aspiration of a simple path to follow Jesus had become cluttered and complex within the order. He likely felt alone and isolated in this aspiration. 

Isolation is, of course, different from solitude. While Francis had often sought solitude to be with Christ and to nurture his faith, this sense of isolation was potentially soul-crushing. 

Is it any wonder, then, that in December 1223, as the late-autumn winds were growing cold, Francis arrived at his beloved Greccio, a place and a community that brought him hope by surrounding him in the love of faith? 

Thomas of Celano’s account of the famous story at Greccio describes Francis’ inner state: “[Francis’] highest aim, foremost desire, and greatest intention was to pay heed to the holy Gospel in all things and through all things. . . . So thoroughly did the humility of the Incarnation and the charity of the Passion occupy his memory that he scarcely wanted to think of anything else.” 

A Living Nativity

Dedicated to retracing Christ’s footsteps, Francis considered creating a living Nativity to celebrate Jesus’ birthday. Without his good friend John—a man who knew how to get things done in the real world—Francis’ hope and aspiration to experience consolation in a faithful re-creation of the Incarnation likely would have remained a silent thought in the solitude of his cell. As a colleague of mine often remarks, “Francis couldn’t organize lint in his pocket.” Organizing a living Nativity was beyond Francis’ capability, but it was not beyond John’s. 

Fifteen days before Christmas, Francis summoned John and told him he wanted to have a living Nativity scene, complete with animals, hay, a manger, and a baby. He wanted to see, touch, and smell all there was to sense in the baby’s own awkward place, lying in an animal’s food trough. Just as Francis himself was experiencing discomfort and anguish—both physical and emotional—he wanted to share in the experience of the baby Jesus. He knew that it would be through visceral engagement, using all his senses, that he would find solace, hope, and compassion. Although he usually sought solitude, he asked to experience this in community, and he asked his friend John to make it happen. 

Celano offers little detail about the work John brought to this task. Celano tells us that when “the day of joy” had arrived, Francis found all things had been prepared: “The manger is prepared, the hay is carried in, and the ox and the ass are led to the spot. . . . Out of Greccio is made a new Bethlehem.” 

Getting the Job Done

If any of you have ever helped organize a Christmas pageant, you know that things don’t just get done by themselves. Many hands and minds go into such an event. Preparing a place, locating the hay, making a manger, finding the suitable animals with manageable demeanors, and convincing parents to allow their baby to be exposed to such a vulnerable (albeit auspicious) role on an early winter’s night all took managerial skills and the collaboration of many people. 

Francis may have had the idea, but he needed the oversight of someone with significant skills in coordinating the efforts of many people and animals. Francis needed John. And John needed the collaboration of many other people—all of whom are anonymous in the historical record—but whose support, interest, and physical assistance contributed to making the living Nativity happen. 

As people gathered with their candles and torches, lighting up the night and taking the chill off the winter’s cold, there emerged among those present at the living Nativity a deeper awareness of connection and interdependence. Along with the recognizable sounds of the snorts and munching of the animals, the familiar smells of candle wax mixed with animal dung, there grew a shared anticipation. 

In one of the most poignant passages in Christian literature, Celano writes: “The night is lit up like day, delighting both man and beast. The people arrive, ecstatic at this new mystery of new joy. The forest amplifies the cries, and the boulders echo back the joyful crowd. The brothers sing, giving God due praise, and the whole night abounds with jubilation.” Within this energized setting in which people, animals, forests, and boulders are all active participants, Francis, the poor man from Assisi who so frequently sought solitude, stood before the manger and uttered “heartfelt sighs.” Mass was celebrated, and a spirit of joy replaced Francis’ habitual “contrite piety.” 

Inspired by a Baby

Forsaking his habit of solitude, in his pain and suffering, Francis began to preach to all who had gathered. Taking up that common trait many of us have when in the presence of a baby, Francis used words and mannerisms that surely made people smile and laugh. Standing by a sheep, he blurted out “bebebeBabe of bebebebeBethlehem.” His bleating was met with the bleating of the nearby sheep. The donkey brayed in the familiar “hee-haw” sound.  

And the babe? The baby at the center of all this woke up. I like to think the baby cried a little and then gurgled as babies do. The crowd that had been so hushed swooned over the baby as the donkey and the sheep looked over to see what little being was making this new noise. 

This may sound a little chaotic to us, but for the people of Greccio, this scene would have offered a sense of fresh familiarity: their daily, mundane realities were made sacred through the Incarnation. After all, the people would have been used to living in close proximity to one another and with their animals, which were brought into their living quarters on frigid nights for shared warmth and well-being. 

Solitude was an experience most people did not experience in the Middle Ages. While vowed religious, such as Francis, could experience the novelty of seclusion, in which they prayed, reflected, and generally turned inward to experience God, most laity prayed in community, reflected in community, and practiced faith in community through acts of charity. 

We can see at Greccio that, two years before he began composing the “Canticle of the Creatures,” Francis was already moving more deeply into a spirituality of interdependence that allowed him to experience his discomforts and distress, pain and frustrations, just as the Christ Child did: in raw vulnerability and in simple honesty of the realities of lived experience.  

Rather than withdrawing into solitude, Francis chose this moment to embrace what it means to be human: to depend on others and to be surrounded by all of creation. Right there, all of nature showed up to be authentically present without artifice or pretense—braying, bleating, singing, gurgling, smiling, giggling, crying, echoing these sounds—in short, celebrating the divine made incarnate. 

We Are All Connected

There is a level of interconnectedness and interdependence that this story reveals when we flesh out some of the instinctive realities that Celano pushed into the background. This was not an elegant pageant to be watched. No, this was an experience of life, centered on and radiating out from the baby representing Christ—an experience of worshipping together in an interconnected way. 

As I was retelling the Christmas story of Greccio in this way as part of my lecture, I realized that the audience had fallen into a hushed silence as they came to experience our own interconnectedness, our own interdependence in our shared faith. After the lecture ended, I watched as people left the auditorium. They seemed to me a little more tender with one another, more present with one another. Their mood and tenderness touched me. 

As I walked to my car, I stopped and stood there alone in the parking lot for a few moments. Within moments, I heard the low, soft sound of an owl hoot as a gentle wind blew through the pine trees, making that particular sound reminiscent of an ocean wave. There I realized I wasn’t alone after all. 

Now I understand why my young friend listens to Christmas music all year round. The miracle of the Incarnation soothes our nerves and softens our sense of independence in ways that open us up to the beauty of relationship and interdependence. This way of being—this experience of faith—is something to practice in every season.

Native American cultures have much to offer the Catholic faith, especially with regard to care for God’s creation. With healing and dialogue, we can take steps to deepen our faith and build up God’s kingdom. 

When Pope Francis visited Canada in July 2022, it was, at its core, a mission for healing. “On this first step of my journey, I have wanted to make space for memory,” the pope said in an address during a meeting with Indigenous peoples in Maskwacis, Alberta. “Here, today, I am with you to recall the past, to grieve with you, to bow our heads together in silence, and to pray before the graves. Let us allow these moments of silence to help us interiorize our pain. Silence. And prayer.” 

The pain Pope Francis referred to stems from the long, sad history of abuse and trauma inflicted on Indigenous youth in Canadian government residential schools. Many of the schools were run by Catholic entities, and, as the pope pointed out in his address, the Church holds a significant amount of the blame for its participation in these institutions of cultural assimilation. 

After a lamentable colonial history, the effects of which are still felt today, we need to develop new pastoral and theological ways of being Church. When colonizers and missionaries came to North America, they expected Indigenous peoples to become Christians and abandon their customs and traditions. They often did not seek to bridge the worldviews or understand Indigenous beliefs in the creator. It simply flies in the face of spreading the Gospel as Jesus showed us. 

Seven Generations

The Canadian Catholic Church participated in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which toured the country from 2008 to 2015 and made 94 calls to action. However, there are many outstanding issues. Specific calls to action for parishes included the following: 

• “We call upon Church parties to the Settlement Agreement to develop ongoing education strategies to ensure that their respective congregations learn about their church’s role in colonization, the history and legacy of residential schools, and why apologies to former residential school students, their families, and communities were necessary.” 
• “We call upon leaders of the Church parties to the Settlement Agreement and all other faiths, in collaboration with Indigenous spiritual leaders, survivors, schools of theology, seminaries, and other religious training centres, to develop and teach curriculum for all student clergy, and all clergy and staff who work in Aboriginal communities, on the need to respect Indigenous spirituality in its own right, the history and legacy of residential schools and the roles of the Church parties in that system, the history and legacy of religious conflict in Aboriginal families and communities, and the responsibility that churches have to mitigate such conflicts and prevent spiritual violence.” 

Clearly, the Canadian Catholic Church was thrilled to welcome Pope Francis’ visit in July 2022 to three Canadian cities. However, while his meetings with Indigenous communities may have spurred pockets of greater interest and commitment by Indigenous Catholics and allies alike, resistance remains, and change is slow. 

The lingering effects of the abuses at the residential schools call to mind a concept called the “seven generations,” which is shared among different Indigenous peoples. It’s about understanding that whatever we do right now doesn’t only affect us or our children. It’s a ripple effect that goes on for generations. 

The Honorable Justice Murray Sinclair, chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, points to education as the key to reconciliation, stating, “Education got us into this mess, and education will get us out of it.” Understanding the history of interaction and relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, specifically in the context of the Roman Catholic Church’s involvement, is deeply important. This understanding should come from a place of humility, where we’re open to asking questions and having discussions that promote mutual sharing and hope. 

Sacramental Creation 

I had the privilege of participating in the Indigenous Pastoral and Lay Ministry Education program, an experience that left a profound impact on me. I gained a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between Indigenous communities and the Church. I also deepened my appreciation for ministry that proposes and accompanies, seeking Christ’s face continually. 

Through this learning experience and an exploration of Franciscan theology, I started pondering the nature and essence of reconciliation. It led me to consider how the Catholic Church might embrace a more theologically intercultural approach to further the cause of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. One such opportunity is the alignment between the Franciscan perspective, which values nature as an ongoing revelation of God, and Indigenous peoples’ deep connection with the land as an essential part of their identity. 

What if we consider nature as a sacrament—not instead of or superior to any of the seven sacraments—but in another way in which God’s grace, presence, and life is present to the world? 

Creation can be considered a sacrament in the sense that it is a sign of God’s loving presence in the world and a reflection of God’s gift of creation to humanity. Many Indigenous cultures view the land not simply as a physical place, but as a living entity with its own spirit. This view of the land as sacred is often woven into the fabric of Indigenous cultures through storytelling, song, dance, and other forms of cultural expression. 

For Indigenous people, this spiritual connection with creation is a means of expressing and experiencing their relationship with the divine, and it serves as a source of spiritual sustenance, healing, and renewal. In this sense, the Indigenous connection with creation can be seen as a sacrament, a physical manifestation of the divine, and a means of receiving grace and blessings. 

The Intersection of Franciscan Spirituality and Indigenous Culture

Sts. Francis and Clare saw themselves in creation and in relationship with all of creation—beholding its beauty as vestiges of God. They experienced creation as infused with God’s grandeur and beauty, causing awe and wonder. Francis and Clare’s lives demonstrate how respect and trust-building—major tenets of intercultural theology—involve respecting all of creation and trusting God will be revealed through it. It helps us to not only be present to that potential, but also humbly open to whatever God has in store. If we view creation in the Franciscan way and acknowledge that we share the earth with Indigenous peoples, I believe that this will help to bring about genuine reconciliation. 

Creation can be considered a sacrament
in the sense that it is a sign of God’s loving
presence in the world and a reflection of
God’s gift of creation to humanity.

One of the challenges that must be addressed is the skeptical view some Christians have of seeing creation imbued with God. For one thing, it’s important to avoid seeing Indigenous customs as superstitious. Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation “Querida Amazonia” (“Beloved Amazon”) teaches that there is no place where Jesus is not already present and active. So we need to have the humility to discover Christ in different cultures and deconstruct our own biases and misunderstandings. 

This truth was driven home for me in November 2021 during a profound experience of participating in a smudge ceremony right before Mass. Smudging is a practice where dried sage is burned, and its smoke ritually “washes” over the body in a sacred circle. The significance of cleansing the soul was a powerful way of preparing for Mass, and it enhanced my understanding of this Indigenous ceremony. When we can accept that no culture, political paradigm, or perspective can contain God, we can more readily love God and others in all their expressions. 

Unified in God’s Kingdom

Developing a more robust theology that includes and invites the contributions of Indigenous Catholics will lead to a wider understanding of faith practices in society and the Church in at least two ways. First, we humble ourselves and listen deeply in order to learn and connect. We demonstrate a new way of engaging as Church—not one where the institutional Church has all the answers, but as an embrace of vulnerable repentance, learning, and openness to change and transformation. 

Second, instilling a deeper connection with the land is new for the Western Catholic Church. This approach calls believers to not only care for the land, but also live as part of it and love it as a brother and sister. Seen in this way, which is Franciscan to the core, land is truly sacramental. 

As you consider all of this in terms of your own context, what is your next step to embracing unity and humility with diverse groups of people in your parish community? Reflect on how you might move away from building a parochial kingdom and instead collaborate with others to build God’s kingdom. In so many ways, challenging the status quo in any organization (including the Catholic Church!), is a labyrinth of starts and stops. But when the Holy Spirit is part of this challenging work, God will unify us so that we “may all be one” (Jn 17:21). 

It won’t be perfect; the process is complex work, but God makes it possible. May God bless our humble efforts and help us to live in the divine mystery so that the Holy Spirit can do the healing and reconciling work as we walk together. 

To learn more, check out our article on Franciscans and Native Americans.

Social scientist and author Brené Brown has inspired me to try to approach aggravation differently with something she calls “living big.” In her book Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, Brown describes an incident in which someone seriously aggravated her. Brown’s dismay and anger felt valid to her until she shared the incident with her therapist, who quipped, “Have you considered that perhaps she was doing the best she could?” Brown is indignant and even thinks about finding a different therapist until she realizes that, as a social scientist, she should approach the question by doing additional research. Her investigation then reveals unequivocally that most people believe that others are doing the best they can. 

A New Worldview

We live in a society that feels divided on many issues: politics, how to address societal problems, religious beliefs, and more. Many of us harbor grudges over past mistakes by leaders, pastors, bishops, other voters, and politicians. Compassion suggests that we put ourselves into others’ shoes and try to look at the world from their perspective. But living big moves us beyond this. It reflects a worldview wherein people I disagree with—or even those with whom I am angry—may just be doing the best they can. 

This perspective is even deeper than an attitude of forgiveness, because forgiveness implies that the other has done something wrong. Living big is giving the other the benefit of the doubt and assuming that there may be circumstances of which I am unaware underlying the other person’s behavior. Living big is about showing the other person love no matter what. 

Joe Schwab, OFM, is aligned with this notion of living big when he describes the Franciscan charism as “loving first, knowing second.” Francis of Assisi discouraged telling others how to behave. He was not enthusiastic about writing a rule of life and was pushed into submitting one as the Church demanded that he have a rule to continue his preaching, establish a religious order, and remain in communion with the Church. In her Way of Life, Clare suggests that her sisters approach their lives together with love and meet weekly to share their needs and strengthen their relationships. Like Jesus, they loved first and did not judge others. 

Living big does not, however, imply that we should fail to engage in seeking social justice or acting and voting based on Catholic social teaching. (Visit FranciscanMedia.org/st-anthony-messenger/july-august-2023 to read Mark P. Shea’s article on its four pillars.) The concept of living big is directly aligned with the first pillar: the dignity of the human person. No matter what a person has done, respect and dignity should be our response. We ought to seek justice, support, and the common good without berating the people who may have different points of view. Living big calls for humility and an assumption that others’ differing points of view may be based on their life experience or woundedness. 

Might we behave as Jesus did and assume that they are doing the best they can? Might our worldview be based on our own life experience, privilege, or woundedness? Are we doing the best that we can? 

At Home on Earth has been a constant companion and an integral part of my life for some very memorable and important years. When I began writing it, we had three children under 10, we were living on an organic farm in a home we built ourselves, and I was directing graduate theology programs at St. Meinrad, a Catholic seminary. 

Ten years later, two of our kids are in college, one is finishing high school, and we’ve moved to a smaller piece of land nearer to Louisville, Kentucky, where I am now running an interfaith mindfulness center. 

Lessons Learned

It’s been quite a journey, and I’ve grown and changed a lot along the way. With this final column, I’d like to reflect on some key themes of my writing—and living—on this lovely 10-year journey: grief, patience, presence, and gratitude. 

First, grief. Not even a year into writing this column, I had an exciting professional opportunity come up, and my family and I discerned that we were all called to leave the farm we had called home for 15 years. That farm was the place I was living when I met my wife, Cyndi. We joined our lives and began raising three beautiful children together, while maintaining a close relationship to the land. It was the place where I invested thousands of hours bringing the soil back to health, raising crops, building a “green” home, investing in neighborly relationships, working myself to the bone, and making just about every mistake it’s possible to make on a farm and in family life. It was the place where I truly learned to love as a mature adult both my family and the land itself. And it was the place that, when we finally said goodbye to it, ripped a hole in my heart. 

The grief of leaving the farm—and the joys and satisfactions we’ve found subsequently—have made me believe more strongly than ever that life always has a cruciform pattern: Loss is inevitable, though it may contain seeds of resurrected transformation that can open your heart and make you a more capable vessel (however cracked and scarred) to receive, carry, and pour out God’s love. Writ large, all of us are facing the grief of losing what our common home once was, with its thriving forests, stable climate, rich soils, and biodiverse ecosystems. We won’t get those back in our lifetimes, and because of that, many of us (both human and non-human) may face great suffering in the future or already are facing it in the present. 

In between the grief of loss and the joy of resurrection, there is “tomb time.” I’ve come to believe that patient waiting is an absolutely essential part of both Christian discipleship and environmental care. Healing and transformation take time, and when it comes to healing ecosystem damage, the timescales are often far more vast than we can comprehend. 

Even the healing of human relationships and trauma can take much longer than we might wish or expect. Waiting—while trusting in the power of God to make things right—is the ultimate test of faith. I’ve been learning patient trust not only from my own experience and from wise human elders in my life, but also from trees, especially those with which I’ve formed close relationships over many years. 

Patient waiting, however, is not passive waiting. As we wait and hope—and work—for a resurrected earth, one of the most important gifts we can cultivate is our full, active, alert presence. Paying attention to the wonderful, wounded beauty of the world around us, in its human and more-than-human elements, is the great calling of the Incarnation. Spirit dwells here, interwoven with every single part of creation. As Thomas Merton put it, “Everything that is, is holy.” 

Only by giving this world our full presence can we discern God at work always and in everything. Only with our full presence can we have any idea of how we may be called to serve, to participate in the resurrection and healing that God brings about. Our presence is one of the greatest gifts we can give another person or the landscape in which we dwell. It is the only way I know of to be truly at home on this earth. 

Cultivating Gratitude

Finally, these past 10 years have taught me to cultivate gratitude. I believe the mystic Meister Eckhart, who claimed that “thank you” is the single most important, most complete prayer we can ever say. When we truly pay attention to this world and to our own lives, of course, our hearts will break. 

But, if we let God keep working on us, that breaking will be a breaking open, so that we’re more and more able to see beauty, to give and receive love. This is the resurrected life: not when everything is fine, when all problems are resolved, but when we are finally able to recognize and give thanks for the love in which all things live and move and have their being. 

And so, dear readers, I end this column with gratitude. I’m thankful to my friends at this magazine for giving me a chance to share my reflections with you over all these years. And I’m deeply grateful for you, who have taken the time to read them and perhaps even let your mind and heart be a little changed by them. 

Thank you, may God bless you, and may you be at home on this lovely earth we all share 

Action Steps

Being at home on earth…

• Everything I’ve written about in the last decade is better experienced than reflected upon. Make it a spiritual practice to regularly spend time in the outdoors, hopefully including at least one spot that you consistently visit. Pay patient attention to how God whispers—or shouts—through the voices of creation. 
• The best way to become fully at home on earth is to get your hands dirty: in a garden, in the kitchen, making or fixing something, doing some practical service for others. Always remember: These are incarnational acts. 

Christmas looked much the same with us balancing time between families, while also taking the time to honor our own little family. 

On Christmas morning, the kids would rush down the stairs while Mark recorded them and their expressions. We would then spend the next hour or so watching the kids tear into their gifts, capturing on film every single moment of excitement. 

Inevitable Changes

Yeah, holidays always looked the same. That is until, suddenly, they didn’t. My parents passed away, kids moved out, and my siblings started to establish their own traditions with their children. Suddenly, we weren’t all together on Thanksgiving and Christmas the way we always had been. The holiday season was completely upended, leaving us all to find a new way to honor it. 

For example, last year we had pizza for Thanksgiving dinner when we visited our daughter Maddie in Florida. It reminded me of the time when she was sick at Thanksgiving and we couldn’t join the family celebrations. She and I shared an untraditional Peanuts-inspired Thanksgiving dinner of toast, popcorn, pretzel sticks, and jelly beans. I hope that holiday memory is ingrained in her memory the way it is in mine. 

The kids exchanged Christmas presents at that November gathering, knowing that we wouldn’t all be together again the following month. In-person celebrations have been replaced with FaceTime calls, text messages, and shared photos in an attempt to erase the distance. 

Even presents have transitioned from Lego sets and board games to more practical ones, such as gift cards. 

Learning to Adapt

As a parent, I have learned over and over that as time marches on, things change. They have to. It’s just the way things go. That’s certainly not to say that I haven’t cried my way through milestones and moves away from home. 

Maddie and her husband welcomed my first grandchild earlier this year. My son is in Arizona at school. We’ll see if he can make it back for Christmas. The other two are still at home, but they have their own schedules. 

But I have also learned that sometimes the best memories are made when we learn to adapt to the situation, just like that Thanksgiving with Maddie so many years ago. Those are where the memories are made that sustain us over time and through changes. 

This Thanksgiving, by the grace of God, we are all able to gather together. It won’t be at our home, and it certainly won’t be like it used to, but it will be pretty close because we’ll be together. In the end, whether it be in person, over FaceTime, or even just a phone call, that’s all that matters, isn’t it? Because no matter what, our connection is never broken.