	Bob Hostetler > Writing

A Grown-Up Christmas List

by Bob Hostetler

Suddenly everyone’s recording it. Not just Amy Grant, but lately Monica, Kelly Clarkson, Natalie Cole, Jane Monheit, and others. It’s a lovely song, entitled, “My Grown-Up Christmas List.” It wishes for “no more lives torn apart,” that “right would always win,” and “love would never end.”

I second that.

But those are pretty lofty requests, and I’m not a very lofty guy. And, while those things are worth wishing for—and praying for, especially—they are totally out of my control. So my grown-up Christmas list focuses on things that are much more down-to-earth and much more in my area of influence than that touching song by songwriters David Foster and Linda Thompson Jenner. At the top of my grown-up Christmas list, you will find:

1. Peace in my heart. Sure, “peace on earth” would be great, but it’s gotta start somewhere, right? So why not start small and build upwards and outwards? And what better place to start than peace in my heart? (It even rhymes). I wish for less stress in my life, more ability to let things go, fewer attempts at compulsive people-pleasing (on my part), and a serenity like that of Julian of Norwich who wrote in simple faith, “All shall be well. All shall be well. And all manner of things shall be well.”

2. Time with my children. My wife and I enjoyed a fine Thanksgiving celebration with extended family, but I told my wife on the drive home that I was disappointed. Other than my wife, the two people I most wanted to spend time with—my adult children—hugged me “hello” and hugged me “goodbye” while all of us visited with others. Bummer. So I wish for more quality time this Christmas with the two perfect children my wife and I (okay, my wife mostly) managed to raise.

3. Time with my wife. At the risk of being repetitive, a high priority for this Christmas season is time with my wife. She’s currently immersed in graduate studies (in counseling…so hopefully she’ll time things so we don’t both go completely nuts before she gets her degree) and I’m struggling to fulfill multiple writing deadlines and pastoral responsibilities. So for Christmas, I want nothing more than face time with my lovely bride (take that anyway you want).

4. A warm, mushy feeling. Part of my family’s Christmas celebration for years have been attempts to reach out and touch someone else. We support our church’s Angel Tree effort, purchasing gifts for the area children of prisoners. We ring bells for The Salvation Army. We try to make an anonymous cash donation to someone in need. We have pitched in as volunteers at Serve City in Hamilton. We have visited nursing home patients. We do those things because they’re the right thing to do, and because I would want someone to do likewise for me. And those are the right reasons. But only once in a while have those efforts brought a tear to my eye or a lump to my throat. So I’m wishing that at least one of our giving efforts this year results in something like that.

5. A Bethlehem experience. No, I’m not talking about “The Bethlehem Experience,” the memorable Christmas reenactment event hosted every year by the Church of the Brethren in Eaton, Ohio—though that’s certainly worth the half-hour drive from Hamilton. No, the Bethlehem experience I’m talking about is an inner experience I want for Christmas this year. It’s happened before, and I pray for it to happen again: that moment when the living God of Christmas overwhelms the human soul with an awareness of his presence and prompts a passionate response. It’s what poet Ann Weems (one of my favorites) means when she writes:

In the excitement and confusion, in the merry chaos,

let’s listen for the brush of angels’ wings.

This Advent, let’s go to Bethlehem

and find our kneeling place.

Those are the top five items on my grown-up Christmas list, right up there with peace on earth, goodwill to men…and a brand new puppy.

This article appeared in the December 2, 2005, edition of the Hamilton Journal-News.

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