Christmas in contemporary culture is all about the gifts. “What did you get for Christmas?” “Look what I got for Christmas!” “Did you hear what Sally bought Harry for Christmas?” It seems easy to get caught up in the commercialism of the day when it surrounds you as it does in our culture.

Yet throughout the evening, I kept thinking of the gifts of a different sort that we were getting on a weekly, daily, or even hourly basis if only we look around. There’s much to be thankful for even in the simplest events of a day.

There are the obvious things: we have a lot of food in the house now, more than seems decent. And we have a woman in our lives who spent an inordinate amount of time preparing it for us. Sure we all helped a little, but keeping things in perspective, it was a very little indeed.

We have a warm and cozy home — a place to prepare that food and eat it later, and a place to sleep when the day is done. We have warm clothes. All these things are necessary, but we could do with a lot less of all these things.

Where we really find cause for gratitude is in the family itself. That’s where the real gifts are.

“[E]ven in such moments tinged with temporary loss, there was a bit of brightness — we’ll appreciate it all the more next near when Nana is back with us.” Thus I ended last year’s thoughts on Wigilia, and here it is, a year later, and Nana is not back with us. It’s hard not to get depressed about things like that. Yet Papa expresses his gratitude for the simple fact that Nana suffers no more, and that he was the one that was left behind. “That was her single greatest fear,” he’s explained to friends and family.

Having Papa around all the time, though the cause of it all is in many ways tragic (but not all ways: see above), is a gift to the kids, especially the Boy. E spends a great deal of time in Papa’s room, watching drawing videos on the computer, eating a snack, sketching something out, playing with cars, just hanging out. “It’s my favorite room in the house,” the Boy has insisted multiple times.

And then there’s Ciocia M and her daughters: they are more like family than just about anyone we know in the States. T, C, L, and E are not family only by a technicality of blood, and I sometimes feel that Ciocia M and K must have been sisters in a previous life if such lives exist.

But why think about previous lives when we’re so fortunate to have the present life we have?

Carols During Mass

Previous Years

Wigilia 2003

Wigilia 2004

Wigilia 2005

Wigilia 2006

Wigilia 2007

Wigilia 2008

Wigilia 2008

Wigilia 2009

https://matchingtracksuits.com/2010/12/25/wigilia-2010/

Wigilia 2011

Wigilia 2012

Wigilia 2013

Wigilia 2014

Wigilia 2015

Wigilia 2016

Wigilia 2017

Wigilia 2018