A Christmas Wish for You

A look back on one of the chapters that made us as we savor this holiday season

Six years ago today I was standing here on my favorite street in the world with my daughter, Claire…Nerudova Street, Prague, Czechia. When this photo came up on my FB memories, I was immediately struck by the date of Christmas 2018…how Claire and I were in the middle of writing a chapter together as mother and daughter in a pre-Covid world, light-hearted, full of wonder, and savoring the holiday market season in Europe. Like everyone, we had absolutely no clue that in just a little over a year, the world would collectively write a brand new chapter that would mark, and yes, unite us, forever.

Fifteen months later, I found myself in this same beautiful city with my oldest daughter, Emma, writing a very different chapter.

It was March 2020, and the world was closing down as we traveled across Europe in the first days of what we now know as the Pandemic. Unknown to me at the time, I’m now most certain that I left for this trip while recovering from the “worst flu I’ve ever had” that absolutely was Covid, before we even knew what the Coronavirus was. The chatter on the news about a scary illness in China had prompted me to load up on Purell and meds before we left Denver, but leaving on the cusp of limited understanding about the virus, Emma and I were unafraid.

Throughout the days of our journey, it became apparent that things were worse than we had known. Airports were becoming jam-packed, and news of toilet paper shortages filled our feed as we wandered the most quiet and lovely streets of Paris, Budapest, Prague and London - each one basically shutting down as we moved onward.

Honestly, it was exhilarating! It’s one of the best memories of my life…to have so many of these lovely cities basically to ourselves in the quiet snow that blanketed the streets that were soon to be filled with fear. In those moments, the city streets sat in a silence like a fairytale written just for me and Emma.

That was Emma and on I your television screen as you watched people flooding into airports from around the world, trying to get back home. We actually made it onto one of the last flights that left from Prague before the airport closed…long before social distancing and face masking…collectively stunned and enamored by it all.

Together, Emma and I ushered in a new and dark chapter of our collective story that lasted for the next few years. And today, I’m struck by how much our brains try to make us forget the trauma of it all.

But it wasn’t all trauma, was it? Some of Pandemic life was actually lovely, yes? And I really just want to name that today.

There was a collective goodwill that rang around the world, coupled with fear and death. We experienced a slowing down that wasn’t asked for, but was given all the same. Horrible and lovely really can and did exist together. That’s one of the big lessons I think I learned in the chapter I now call “Covid World.” And that’s what I want to think on today as I move into these last weeks of Advent.

A lot is going on. So much “horrible” swirls around us even now, daring us to take a deep breath of it and ruin all of our present moments. But with just a tiny bit of intention, I think we can still capture the beauty, the peace, the coziness, and the wonder of this season.

It’s a chapter that will be gone before we know it. And it’s a chapter worth savoring for all the horrible and lovely that coexists right now, because it is yet another chapter that is making us.

So whatever is happening in your lives today, and for all that is to come in the holiday ahead, I hope you’ll be attentive to the story that is both obviously present AND the story that is longing to come alive.

Horrible and lovely seem to always coexist, and I actually pray it does so in you this weekend and in the the coming weeks…for it all has something to teach us.

May we see today for all it’s trauma and all it’s beauty. May our minds not try to disassociate and forget, but be truly present. Because it’s in the present that we find the Presence of a baby/God that came way back then because they knew we would need rescuing today, and who offers beauty in the moments that are right here waiting for us all.

My challenge and prayer for you is that you will linger a little longer than feels comfortable with the moments that capture you this holiday season and feel alive again, full of hope, expectation and joy as your story continues. May you allow this chapter to “make you” in the very best of ways.

Happy Travels and Merry Christmas!

Amy