The Timeless Christmas Story
By Claudia Goodman

How remarkable it is that as stories have come and gone through the centuries, the Christmas story has only grown brighter and more beloved with each retelling.  It’s a story celebrated a myriad ways, joyfully recounted for each rising generation.

Celebrating the story that never grows old.

Like most of you, some of my fondest childhood memories revolve around the Christmas story.  Enacting the nativity has always been my favorite tradition.  After I was married, my husband and I eagerly staged our own nativity pageant, as our family gradually grew large enough to cover all the parts. 

One year as we began rehearsing the pageant, I felt ten-year-old LeAnne’s gentle arms around my waist.  I looked down into her tender brown eyes as she said quietly, “Mom, can I please be Mary?  I haven’t gotten to for a few years, and this is the very last time I’ll ever get to be her in my whole life.  Please.”     

I smiled and said, “Well, I don’t know that it’s the very last time…” I paused to weigh out the options and make sure I was being fair.  It had been awhile since she had been Mary.  “Sure, you can be Mary,” I decided.

LeAnne beamed as she skipped off.  A couple of days later I was going through the nativity costumes.  They looked so small now.  All the kids had grown.  As I held up the Mary costume, I suddenly had the impulse to make a new costume for LeAnne.  The other costumes would do, even if they were a little short, but LeAnne had to have something special.

I went to the store and picked out fabric for a simple robe and veil.  The following night we performed our Christmas show for two parties.  I looked up at LeAnne in her beautiful new Mary costume, holding the baby Jesus with such love and reverence.  A contented smile lit her face.  She was totally immersed in living her dream, and all around people wept at the tenderness that radiated from her, a model of purity and love.

Coming to know the Christmas story on a deeper level.

Two days later our family was involved in a car accident, in which LeAnne and two of her brothers were killed.  My husband Steve and two other daughters, Andrea and Aimee, were so critically injured that they were not expected to live.  It was a very different Christmas that year.  All the frills were stripped away as I arranged the funeral for our three little angels and sat at the bedside of my husband and daughters.  Without gifts, decorations, or a tree, we learned firsthand about the heart of Christmas, as people around the world reached out to embrace us in our time of need.

Yet, in spite of all the heartwarming miracles, I had some bleak moments that December.  The warmth of the funeral wore off, leaving me to deal with the harsh realities of life.  Now that we knew Steve, Andrea, and Aimee would all survive, we faced a different set of challenges.  Steve was expected to be out of work for about six months.  Andrea would probably be on a ventilator in the hospital for eight months, unable to speak or eat, and Aimee would be in rehabilitation for eight to twelve months and then severely handicapped for life, unable to be mainstreamed. 

Miraculously, Steve was able to come home after another week in the hospital, but that was a mixed blessing.  He still needed fulltime care, and now I was torn between three places instead of two, with Andrea in one hospital, and Aimee in the other.  The doctors were gradually weaning them off the painkilling drugs, and they had to be tied to their beds much of the time.  It seemed that when I went to see Andrea, she was unconscious, and when I went to see Aimee, she had needed me while I was gone, but was now asleep.  There were moments when my heart ached, as I watched Aimee gasping for breath for hours at a time, or Andrea struggling to communicate but unable to speak, or Steve still in so much pain and so much in need of my love and care as I left him to go back to the hospital again and again.

But there were also moments of triumph—when Steve laughed all the way through a Christmas video with the kids, nearly splitting his broken ribs.  When Aimee recognized me for the first time, even though she lapsed back into forgetfulness.  And when Andrea smiled and wrote to me, because she was unable to speak with the ventilator tube in her mouth, “I think of you in all my spare moments.”

On the evening of December 23, Aimee was finally taken into the rehab unit.  It was a big step, after spending over two weeks in ICU.  I walked into her room.  She was sitting on her bed with her back toward me.  She just sat and stared into space until I finally interrupted her.  When I asked her if she knew who I was, she didn’t respond.  She didn’t even know who she was.  But she was alive and breathing on her own, even if she still had a feeding tube, and I gently kissed her goodnight.

The next day was Christmas Eve.  We didn’t have much planned.  I had hoped we could all be together for Christmas, but there was no way to do that.  The older children were all out of school now, so they pitched in to organize a small celebration. 

I headed back to the hospital, leaving Steve in the care of the children at home.  I decided to check on Andrea first.  In spite of the fact that the doctors said her progress would be up and down for months, she was doing miraculously well—so well, in fact, they had told me the day before, that she would be off the ventilator in two or three weeks!  As I walked into her room, the doctors were pulling out the ventilator tubes.  I had vivid memories of Aimee, whose lungs were not nearly as battered as Andrea’s, gasping for breath.  “What are you doing?” I asked in alarm.

The nurse replied that Andrea was doing so well that they were going to try taking her off the ventilator.  I watched in disbelief.  She was breathing on her own, with only a little oxygen tube in her nose.  I was amazed!  But a few hours later, I had greater cause for astonishment.

The doctor announced that he had made arrangements for Andrea to be transferred to Primary Children’s Hospital that night, so that Andrea and Aimee could be in the same hospital for rehab!  What an incredible Christmas present!  I knew that the hospital staff had really pulled some strings to get the insurance company to cover it and make all those arrangements so quickly.  It was unbelievable!  My gratitude knew no bounds. 

It was 8:30 before I got home for Christmas Eve dinner, but we had a lot to celebrate.  Andrea and Aimee were doing much better than we had anticipated!  It didn’t take long to set out the stockings and what gifts there were, mostly provided by others.  It was a very simple Christmas, and we retired early.

Christmas morning we arrived at the hospital about mid morning and went to check on Andrea, who was supposed to remain in ICU for two or three days.  As we walked in, we met a nurse pushing her out onto the floor in a wheelchair.  Andrea was doing so well that they decided to move her into her new room!  We followed excitedly, carrying the many gifts people had sent for her and Aimee.  When we got to the room, Aimee ran into Andrea’s arms, and they embraced.  They were so happy to see each other! 

I looked up with tears in my eyes.  There stood Elder Richard G. Scott, smiling.  He had been visiting with Aimee and was enjoying the reunion as much as we were.  Someone told us later that when he walked into Aimee’s room, she looked up.  The nurse said, “Do you know him?”  And Aimee said, “He’s my friend.”  She knew.

At that moment the things that were usually important about Christmas faded into oblivion.  Our smattering of decorations was enough.  The gifts we hadn’t been able to buy or make didn’t matter.  Even our treasured traditions would keep for another year.  But right now we had more than we could ever ask for.  We had each other forever, even if three of us were angels, and why?  Because of a precious baby born two thousand years ago.  There was a lot to celebrate, “And it was comforting how warm it was for December.”               

Passing on the spirit of the Christmas story.

Before we knew it, it was Christmas again.  We revived our favorite Christmas traditions that had never materialized last year.  Christmas Eve was the highlight, and all the children were eagerly looking forward to the festivities.  Just as we were leaving the house to add a new tradition for our three angels at the cemetery, the phone rang.  It was the sister of the man who hit us in the accident.  In a voice filled with emotion she explained to me that he was in prison and that no one was going to visit him this Christmas.  I talked to Steve, and we decided to modify our plans a little. 

We all arrived at the cemetery and shoveled the snow off the headstone that bore pictures of David, Peter, and LeAnne.  It was already getting dark as we made luminaries from paper lunch sacks filled with sand and lighted candles.  We sang Christmas carols together and placed a large wreath decorated with musical notes at the head of the grave.  Our backs were cold, but our hearts were warm.

Then Steve announced that before we had our Christmas Eve dinner, we ought to make a quick trip to the Salt Lake County Jail to visit the man who hit us in the accident.  The kids moaned inside, their hearts longing to just be home for Christmas, but no one dared say anything. 

It was an unusually quiet ride to the jail, for children who love to sing.  It felt like all the cheer had drained out of the car.  This was one performance no one welcomed, since precious time for Christmas Eve traditions put on hold from last year was quickly evaporating.  We finally arrived and were informed that we would have to wait forty-five minutes to see our friend.  The children were getting more and more anxious about the festivities they were missing.  At last the time passed and we were escorted in to see him.  We could only talk over a speaker through a thick glass window.  As we began to sing Christmas carols to him, his face softened.  Tears streamed freely down his cheeks.  I think our eyes brimmed over as well.  We walked out into the night, and it was no longer cold.  Instead “it was comforting how warm it was for December.”

Reliving the Christmas story again and again.

It was a good Christmas.  There was only one thing missing—the nativity play.  It was the first year we hadn’t had one, but there were no little children left to take the parts.  College and high school kids don’t usually relish the thought of dressing up like Mary and Joseph.  I sighed and said, “I guess we just won’t have a Christmas Pageant this year.”

Christmas Day was almost over, and I was grateful that it was less eventful than last year.  I was busy putting the house back together after our big celebration, when the children called me to come downstairs.  I finished what I was doing and wandered down to the family room.  There were Aimee and Mark, dressed as Mary and Joseph.  Their costumes were a little wrinkled and obviously too short.  I was escorted to my seat by three wise men who looked suspiciously like Christy, Julianne, and Marilee.  Andrea was the lone shepherd with her big stuffed lamb.  Julianne had salvaged an old script I had written, which she really didn’t need.  She had the whole scriptural account memorized from years of repetition.  The story unfolded with appropriate pauses for the children to sing all my favorite Christmas carols.  The story of Christmas never dies.

It has been seven years since the accident.  Seven of our children are now married, and with fourteen little grandchildren to play the parts, the Christmas story lives on.  It’s a story that only grows brighter through the years, a story people never tire of hearing and reliving.  And why do we all love it so much?  Perhaps we see ourselves reverently kneeling at the manger to pay our homage to the great Prince of Peace, even the Lord Jesus Christ. 

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Making the Christmas story live for you—a few ideas.

Buy or make your own inexpensive nativity set using childproof materials (wood, cloth, plastic, etc.) and set it where young children can play with it freely, without fear of breaking anything.

Read the Christmas story as a family from the Bible in Luke 2 and Matthew 2, also 3 Nephi 1.

Display a nativity in your home.

Hang up a beautiful painting of the nativity.

Find illustrated books telling the nativity story and read them to your children or keep them where your children have free access to them.

Gather your family to sing favorite Christmas carols together, especially those found in the Hymn Book and the Primary Children’s Songbook.

Enjoy a nativity tableau displayed on the temple grounds, a nearby church, or elsewhere in your community.

Participate in a Messiah Sing-In.

Invest in a recording of the Tabernacle Choir singing Christmas carols.  It really brings the spirit of Christmas into your home.

Watch the new Church DVD “Joy to the World.”

Reserve Christmas Eve as a time to stage your own nativity pageant.  It can be very simple.  Bathrobes, old sheets and towels make great costumes.  A doll can represent the Baby Jesus.  Read the story from the Bible a few verses at a time as the children act out the story and pause to include favorite Christmas carols. 

For a more elaborate Christmas pageant, create an original script incorporating the nativity story, make your own costumes, compose original music, include special vocal or instrumental numbers, or make a recording to preserve the memory.

Be creative.  There are thousands of ways to celebrate the birth of our Savior.  Do what feels good to you