I want to tell you about my Christmas, and I worry that I’ll do it badly. I’m susceptible (as you may have noticed) to the temptation to play the martyr, but in fact the tale I have to tell you is quite a happy one. I had a blessed Christmas.

My church is one of those that only did Christmas Eve services this year, so I went to that, and then Christmas Sunday lay before me unscheduled (my family will gather next weekend). It’s something of a challenge for a Christmas-lover like me to spend the big day by himself, but I prayed earnestly for a good spirit as I went to bed.

I woke up remembering a strange dream (as if I’ve ever had a dream that wasn’t strange). I was kneeling, studying a doll house. I was certain, for some reason, that there were tiny people living in that doll house. But I’d never seen them. They were shy and they kept out of sight, frightened, no doubt, by my size.

And as I thought about that dream, lying in bed, it occurred to me that this was a parable of Christmas. God faced a similar problem when He came into the world, and He solved it by becoming small, by becoming a baby.

I thought that a rather jolly way to wake up Christmas morning. It put me in an unexpectedly festive mood. Then, as I got up, I noticed how cold it was. Our natural gas company, worried about the gas supply (Gee, I wonder how that came to be a problem), had asked us to turn our thermostats down to 65⁰, and I’d done so, like a loyal Comrade. I remembered that I’ve got a nice, hand-knitted pair of wool stockings somewhere, which I hadn’t worn in a while. Seemed like a good day for them. I poked around in some drawers, and in the bottom bureau drawer I found, not the socks (I found those somewhere else), but a pair of flannel pajamas. I hadn’t worn those pajamas in years. I’d forgotten I owned them. When I contemplate my old clothes, the question is always, of course, “From which geological era of my life do these come?” I’ve been thin and I’ve been fat, and I still haven’t lost enough weight to wear the older stuff. But I tried the pj’s on, and they fit very well. I’d been wearing ordinary cotton pajamas, but it seemed to me flannel was just the thing for current conditions. It was like getting a Christmas present, so I decided to consider them one.

Through the rest of the day I took a break from my diet, considering it a Feast. I listened to Christmas music by Sissel. And I continued reading the book I was working on, Lewis’ Perelandra (which I mean to review tomorrow).

Perelandra, it seems to me, stands alone among Lewis’ works in a particular way. I think it’s the most fully mythopoeic of his books, most closely bound to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, if only in spirit. Lewis was at the peak of his creative powers here, and he excelled at moving the heart by way of the intellect – I’ve read Perelandra several times, but this time was almost physically difficult for me. More than once I had to stop to regain my composure. Not because I didn’t like it, but because it pierced my heart again and again. So I was something of an emotional basket case on Christmas day.

But I wasn’t unhappy. In its peculiar way, this was one of the best Christmases I’ve ever spent.