CHRISTMAS, CATS, TREES AND A MANGER
by Brenda Agee
I don't have a Christmas tree this year. Instead, I have a cat. That may not sound very profound to those of you who are reading this, but it is a profound statement for me.
We had a yellow tabby cat when we were children and her name was Miss Kitty. When I was quite small, mama said she had a surprise to show me. She took my little hand and guided me to the wooden cupboard where I kept my play clothes. My play clothes transformed me into a princess because they were beautiful satin and lace dresses that had once belonged to one of my many older sisters. When mama opened the cupboard doors there was Miss Kitty with a new litter of kittens. Mama asked me what I thought and all I could do was stare down at that cat with these tiny little wiggly things stuck to her stomach and think of how Miss Kitty had ruined my favorite pink satin play dress. I ran away from the dreadful sight. I don't think I liked cats very much after that.
My daughter had a cat when she was in her teens. King was a pretty good cat actually. He had personality! He had found a place in the basement to go outside and come back in so he came and went as he pleased. It wasn't long before we realized he dominated the neighborhood but he was gentle and docile in the house and let my daughter hold and pet him to his and her content. Then there was the day that King brought us a trophy from outside and dropped it at our feet. We didn't realize when we first saw him playing with a "toy" that it was a mouse. The mouse was quite still and my daughter and I slowly bent down to see if it was dead when it suddenly started running around the room. King happily chased after it. Holly and I screamed and I jumped up onto the sofa while yelling at Holly to do something. It was pure role reversal! I was NOT going to protect my daughter from this gargantuan mouse that could have fit into a matchbox. Instead, I kept squealing at her to do something. Even with my eyes half closed I saw her get a broom and like any dignified woman, I closed my eyes so I couldn't see what she was going to do. Let me just say that she took care of the mouse and was traumatized by doing so.
My reaction was to declare that I would have no more cats. Not ever!
Then I lived with my daughter and son-in-law. Every year in the winter a stray neighborhood cat would have kittens in the rafters of their garage and when the kittens were around a month old the mama cat would move them to live under the neighbor's porch. Not quite two years ago, she had her kittens and mid-afternoon one day we heard what sounded like three dozen kittens, crying for their mama. She never came. My son-in-law tried to find the noisy kittens but couldn't. He called a friend who came over and several hours later, they found one tiny kitten who barely had his eyes open. When my daughter brought him into the house he was a tiny, dusty, dirty, gray tabby kitten and my first words were that he looked "smokey" and barely a split second later my three year old granddaughter cried out that he was "bananas", so yes, his name is Smokey Bananas.
I took Smokey while Holly got milk and a medicine dropper ready, and I placed him on my neck where he could feel my pulse. He quieted down and started to nestle into my neck. I was the one who fed him, bathed him, let him lie on my neck, and became his surrogate mama. I just couldn't give him up. He became my baby and he still thinks I am him mama. He still buries his head in my neck and does that little tapping thing with his paws while he sleeps.
So now that this is my first Christmas in my apartment, I don't have a Christmas tree. I have a cat and I am content.
I always loved Christmas trees and decorating them when I was a child was more fun than I can describe. However, when I about 8 years old, I moved back from the tree and sat beside mama and what I saw was horrible! The upper two-thirds of the tree was lovely but the lower third was ugly, ugly, ugly! I looked up at mama and asked her why it was so awful. She just put her arm around me and softly chuckled. She said it was always like that because she and daddy always let us children decorate the tree and the youngest children could only reach the bottom while the older children always decorated the upper part of the tree. The little ones put things in clumps and without any thought of beauty. They were simply too young to know the difference. I argued that it hadn't been ugly the year before but she just laughed a little more and said that was because I had been too young the year before to notice the difference. I understood what she meant and I was mortified. Mama was a wise woman though. She kissed my forehead and told me to be patient because in a couple of years the younger ones would be old enough to notice and the whole tree would be pretty. However, she got a little misty-eyed and said the tree that I thought was ugly was beautiful to her and that when the younger two children were old enough to decorate a pretty tree, she would always miss the little mis-matched decorations.
This might seem like an odd introduction to a "Christmas" blog but it was the tree that started my thoughts. I do own a lovely tree and I used my cat as my excuse to not put it up. And yes, I know that I am to train my cat and not let my cat train me but I think this year, although maybe not next year, it is enough for me to enjoy the trees that I see in the windows of beautifully decorated homes as I drive by them. I thoroughly enjoyed watching my son decorate his tree and his excitement was quite infectious. I went to see my daughter's tree the day after they decorated it and it, too, was just beautiful and exciting to see.
Everywhere are lights, trees, wreathes, decorations of all kinds. Most years we find new ideas to try and new decorations to make or hang up. We see Christmas in our minds even before we decorate. We have parties, drink hot chocolate, eat candy, sing Christmas songs of all styles. We hug, we laugh, we wave at people, and say "Merry Christmas!" It's beautiful! It's fun, it's exciting!
For most of us it is the celebration of the birth of our Lord, of God Himself as the tiny baby in Bethlehem, and we want to celebrate big, as it should be. We are, after all, celebrating the birth of the King of kings!
He is our King! And He deserves the greatest birthday celebration we can give. But this year, I can't get passed the manger. The King of kings, the one and only living God, the Almighty Lord of lords, the one who was placed in a rough hewn wooden manger, was Jesus, Emanuel, our Lord. Here the tiny baby, wrapped and swaddled, who nestled against his mother, slept with the lowly sounds of animals eating or sleeping nearby. God chose the most humble of beginnings for His only son.
I love Christmas and I truly believe that as Christians, we should celebrate the birth of Jesus, celebrate Christmas, more remarkably and joyously than those who do not know Jesus!
My mother missed the unsightly lower third of the Christmas trees we decorated when we were just tiny children and yet, to her, they remained the most beautiful trees of all. As we celebrate the birth of our Lord, may we also reflect upon how truly beautiful the manger was, for the manger was the first bed in which God our Father chose to place His only begotten Son! In the midst of our beautiful, exciting celebration of Jesus' birth, may we also reflect on His humble beginning, His humble way of life and love, and may we in turn be humble in our gratitude and love for God and for each other!
This might seem like an odd introduction to a "Christmas" blog but it was the tree that started my thoughts. I do own a lovely tree and I used my cat as my excuse to not put it up. And yes, I know that I am to train my cat and not let my cat train me but I think this year, although maybe not next year, it is enough for me to enjoy the trees that I see in the windows of beautifully decorated homes as I drive by them. I thoroughly enjoyed watching my son decorate his tree and his excitement was quite infectious. I went to see my daughter's tree the day after they decorated it and it, too, was just beautiful and exciting to see.
Everywhere are lights, trees, wreathes, decorations of all kinds. Most years we find new ideas to try and new decorations to make or hang up. We see Christmas in our minds even before we decorate. We have parties, drink hot chocolate, eat candy, sing Christmas songs of all styles. We hug, we laugh, we wave at people, and say "Merry Christmas!" It's beautiful! It's fun, it's exciting!
For most of us it is the celebration of the birth of our Lord, of God Himself as the tiny baby in Bethlehem, and we want to celebrate big, as it should be. We are, after all, celebrating the birth of the King of kings!
He is our King! And He deserves the greatest birthday celebration we can give. But this year, I can't get passed the manger. The King of kings, the one and only living God, the Almighty Lord of lords, the one who was placed in a rough hewn wooden manger, was Jesus, Emanuel, our Lord. Here the tiny baby, wrapped and swaddled, who nestled against his mother, slept with the lowly sounds of animals eating or sleeping nearby. God chose the most humble of beginnings for His only son.
I love Christmas and I truly believe that as Christians, we should celebrate the birth of Jesus, celebrate Christmas, more remarkably and joyously than those who do not know Jesus!
My mother missed the unsightly lower third of the Christmas trees we decorated when we were just tiny children and yet, to her, they remained the most beautiful trees of all. As we celebrate the birth of our Lord, may we also reflect upon how truly beautiful the manger was, for the manger was the first bed in which God our Father chose to place His only begotten Son! In the midst of our beautiful, exciting celebration of Jesus' birth, may we also reflect on His humble beginning, His humble way of life and love, and may we in turn be humble in our gratitude and love for God and for each other!
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Oh, Father, we celebrate you! We celebrate the birth of Jesus! We celebrate our salvation and eternal life through Jesus Christ! Father, as we celebrate in a big way, may we first remember the humble manner in which Jesus was born and in which He lived so that we might one day know Jesus, know You, in all Your glory in Heaven. And in so doing, may we humble ourselves before You this Christmas season and forever! In Jesus' name . . . Amen!