Christmas Day is over. We’ve eaten the food and opened the gifts. Family has come and gone – or were not able to come. Now what?
What if there were gifts I could give that would change the world, at least change my world? What if, despite these dark times, I could experience the promise of Christmas: comfort and joy?
Last summer I was visiting my 4-year-old granddaughter. We were walking together, and she saw a lighthouse in the distance. She was convinced, as only a child’s imagination can do, that it was Rapunzle’s tower.
She wanted to go to the top. We drove to the lighthouse. I paid the admission fee. We went through the gate and walked over to the base of the lighthouse. Then she looked up.
It was much, much higher and bigger than she’d anticipated (and the admission fee was much, much more than I’d anticipated). Her enthusiasm dimmed. “No,” she said, “I don’t want to go in.”
“Let’s at least walk inside,” I suggested. We went into the lighthouse. The view of the small, open, spiral metal staircase looked even more daunting. But I’d already paid the admission fee.
Marguerite Chandler lives in Newtown.
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