For decades my holiday tradition has been to attend a Christmas Eve church service that ends after midnight. I would rush home with the glow of Christmas carols sung in community and then open Christmas presents, since it was actually Christmas morning! I’d sleep late and then take a hike (or at least a long walk) by myself contemplating the year and counting my blessings.

This year the tradition comes to an end. An Episcopal Church is coordinating a hike at 3:30pm on Christmas Eve in one of our wonderful parks here in Nashville, Percy Warner. Later in the evening (but not late), I’ll be watching a church service on-line, worshiping together, but apart. Since it won’t be close to midnight, I’m not sure if I’ll stay up anyway maybe celebrating with some eggnog, or if I’ll break with tradition and go to bed early, greeting Christmas upon awakening in the early morning.

My decades-long pattern for Christmas has come to an end. Should I long for a year past, maybe 2019 when everything seemed more “normal”?

I’ve decided that lost traditions can be replaced with new ones.

Hiking on Christmas Eve reminds me of Las Posadas in San Antonio where from December 16th to the 24th, groups of people would go from house to house each night where there was “no room at the inn”. As a modern celebration, each home has refreshments for the travelers which would conclude with a Christmas Eve church service and celebration with piñatas for the children.

As I hike this year on Christmas Eve with people I don’t know, I won’t be looking back in my memory to find a better year of my life. Instead, I’ll be transported back to 2000 years ago when Mary and Joseph had no place to call their own. Just like Mary and Joseph, we’ll be celebrating the birth of Jesus and the transformation of the world. Just like 2000 years ago, we are guaranteed of always having a “room at the inn”.

I pray that this year, with disrupted Christmas traditions, you may recognize the value in new patterns with friends, family and the world at large. Let’s celebrate and be renewed just as the people were in early Bethlehem as they followed the star.

Blessings, my friend,
Agatha