When Christmas isn’t Joyful

Nov 27

What are the stories we tell each Christmas? As collaborator Sara hangs ornaments on her Christmas tree, she retells the stories of the ornaments to her kids. One of those ornaments is “the reminder of the year that didn’t destroy us.”

This month on the Good Friday Collaborative blog, we invite you read the story of the bird to reflect what Christmas can offer even when it feels more like a crushed bird than it a big red bow.

The Story of the Bird was originally posted on Fidelia, the online magazine of Young Clergy Women International. You can read the full essay there.

The Story of the Bird

I met my husband 15 years ago this Christmas, with all the trappings of a holiday romance movie: the snow was gently falling, he was in his new Army dress uniform, we talked for hours from the evening of Christmas Eve to the dawn of Christmas Day. I, young and feeling in love, went out and bought a Christmas ornament to commemorate such a lovely meet-cute. Ever since, we’ve had a tradition of buying an annual ornament; our collection is full of reminders of the churches we’ve served, the states we’ve lived in, and milestones we’ve reached as a family.
But there was one year, several years ago, when things were… not good. Our family was strong, but we were in the midst of both professional and personal chaos. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t in any mood to purchase a special ornament to commemorate it.
So I didn’t.
It came up in conversation a few times that season; my husband and I were very aware there was no new ornament, and we were okay with that.
But then, a few days after Christmas, we were at Target and saw a big clearance bin of ornaments, clearly the remnants of decorations that no one wanted during the season. I mean, ZERO PEOPLE wanted them. They were all damaged and hideous.
Then I saw it: The Bird.
It was oversized and brightly colored — very different from the delicate gold-trimmed ornaments we usually chose. It was crushed from having been pushed repeatedly to the bottom of the bin and was missing a sewn-on eye, a bare thread in its place. The tail was coming unglued and there was inexplicably some sort of plastic fish hook attached to its head.
And it was also 90% off. That thing cost thirty-nine cents.
I held it up to my husband: THIS IS IT. THIS IS OUR ORNAMENT FOR THIS YEAR. THIS BIRD THAT IS THIRTY-NINE CENTS AND MISSING AN EYE.