A Christmas Triptych

A reflection in three parts

A quiet Christmas afternoon. Fog has settled in across the fields around our house. The dinners are done, gifts unwrapped, thank you yet to be sent.

In my mind, I hear the words “A Christmas Triptych,” a story in three parts, and this is where it leads.

The Birth We Remember

A child born into ordinary circumstances—vulnerable and fragile, cradled in the most unlikely of places. Nothing about it looked significant at first glance. And yet we’ve spent centuries telling and retelling this moment, because somewhere deep inside, we sensed that what lay in that smallness was strength itself.

I’ve found that the promise of something coming doesn’t usually arrive with explanation. More often, it comes as a feeling—a deep knowing without words. We don’t fully understand it, but we lean toward it anyway. We make a little room. We watch and wait.

There’s something profoundly gentle about that kind of birth. To look upon what appears so tender, so breakable, and still recognize the power of the entire universe within it. To trust that what is most alive does not need to shout.

This is the mystery that calls to me.

The Birth We Forget

What’s easy for me to forget is that this story isn’t meant to stay outside of us.

Once a year, we pause long enough to remember what slips away the rest of the time—that we, too, are part of the mystery. That the same strength, the same light, the same possibility lives within us. Not as something we have to earn, but as something that’s already here.

Most days, I forget this. I get caught in old thoughts and old worries. I replay what didn’t go as planned or rush ahead to what hasn’t happened yet. And I miss the quiet miracle of simply being alive.

Christmas slows me down just enough to notice again. The stillness. The softer light. The sense that something is being offered without demand.

Rejoicing, I’m learning, isn’t a feeling that appears on command. It’s a practice. A willingness to say yes to the moment in front of us, exactly as it is.

The Birth We Choose

What I know now—perhaps more clearly than I once did—is that this birth is always available. Not once a year, but in any moment I’m willing to choose it.

It happens in the quiet moments—when I stop striving, when I loosen my grip on how things are supposed to look, when I remember the light I carry, even when I don’t feel especially radiant.

Today, that’s the choice I’m making: to rejoice not because everything is perfect, but because life is still unfolding and still new.

Maybe that’s enough for today. To notice what feels alive, make a little space, and trust the light that’s already there, always shining within.

This is my wish for all of us: To remember more than we forget, to rejoice in what’s being born in us moment to moment, and to choose the mystery and miracle of Christmas every single day of the year.

With love,

Deb

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