This is a transcript of a short podcast I sent to my listeners.

My Christmas Card to You
When my daughter was small, and could still feel the spirit of Christmas, we would pick out Christmas trees and all the trimmings. Not one tree, but twenty or more. Not one string of lights, but enough to brighten all the evergreens. I would check my list of battered women, runaway and non-returnable kids, and single-mothers struggling to make ends meet. Sometimes it would snow, and other times the sun would melt the snowmen, but every Christmas we’d load up the car and silently deliver the trees and trimmings to the addresses on the list. On Christmas eve, we’d drive by all the houses and shed a silent tear of joy at the sight of the trees in the windows. My little one would smile and gently take my hand, a sign that her heart was also smiling.

When my daughter was small, we would invite as many of her friends as we could to Christmas Eve dinner. All the furniture was moved out of the way, and a very long table for 12 or 20 was set up in the middle of the living room, close to the tree, and away from the parents. I would ask each parent to bring a gift for Santa’s bag, something special they wanted their child to get from Santa. What the parents didn’t know is that I would then set out to get another gift for each child, then wrap it and label it, “With love, from Santa.” Santa would show up just after dessert and kids and parents alike would smile widely as we sang carols and waited eagerly for the gifts to be taken from his bag. One gift, then another, with every child smiling in amazement. One gift, then another, and every parent was just as amazed. Parents young and old looked at each other, at the gifts they didn’t buy, and at the man in the red suit. We knew we had rekindled a few hearts and helped them believe that Santa could be real.

When my daughter got older, she asked that I stop having Santa Claus come to the party, and then eventually asked that we not have a party as her friends had changed and she was too “grown up” for such things. She didn’t have time to deliver trees any more, and my own finances prohibited me from doing such things. Times had changed. The snow was still gentle, the sun sometimes still melting the ice, but somehow we had gotten too busy, too poor, too proud.

As I walked to a nearby store on Christmas Eve, my heart felt heavy and my mind shifted from melancholy to anger and back again. I felt like a victim. A victim of time and circumstance and a life that wasn’t quite what I wanted or thought it should be. As I emerged from the store, a hand spun me around on the ice-covered parking lot. A man with a scar and a terrifying look in his eyes demanded money. I pushed him away and went back in the store for help. They couldn’t get involved, they said, because the incident didn’t happen in the store. I should call the police fro the corner phone booth. I looked for the phone, and the man with the scar was in the booth. I started toward home, and he came toward me. I turned toward the store, and he walked away. Eventually the cat and mouse game was over, and as I opened the door to the store, a large chunk of ice hit my cheek and eye, then splattered into the store. Now they could call, the manager said, because the ice was inside of the store. The police drove me home and later found the man with the scar. Christmas day they asked me to come to the station and press charges, but I had spoken to an elder and a mentor. I told them to let him go. Later that day, I searched for him. Through a driving snow storm, I walked the streets until I finally saw him standing with some other men. “Remember me?” I asked. He stepped back and readied himself for a fight. “I’m the one you hit with the ice.” He stared and I watched his hands clench into fists. “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m not here to hurt you. I just wanted to say, I don’t agree with what you did. I understand why, and I believe you could be better than that. I disagree, but I forgive you.” I put my hand out to shake his and eventually he took it. I smiled at him, said Merry Christmas, and made my way back home. I forgave him because I had helped to create the energy that made me a victim. I forgave because we are all a part of each other and I attracted his response. I forgave, but I didn’t condone. I forgave, but I didn’t run or stay silent. Sometime later I checked with police friends and they told me the scarred man was now working at the mission, helping others stay off the streets. My Native American grandmothers had taught me unconditional love, and I honored them.

When my daughter was small, she knew my love for her was unconditional. She knew the “rules”, the boundaries, and knew she was free to do and be all things within those limits. My daughter is now in college, in love, and often in chaos, but she still knows that love, those rules, those boundaries. And now it’s Christmas. Because of circumstance, money, other people’s health, she and I will spend Christmas apart. But I’ll still trim the tree, invite Santa to dinner, send love to those who have been beaten, forgotten, thrown away, or lost. And in my heart, somewhere deep in my soul, I’ll know that Christmas still is, and my spirit still is, my daughter will always be, and that unconditional love is forever.

Merry Christmas.