Joyce Putnam Eblen - Christmas in the Imperfect Tense: Five True Stories

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, photographic including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher. No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

Copyright 2013 by Joyce Putnam Eblen

ISBN 978-0-7414-9641-6 Paperback
ISBN 978-0-7414-9642-3 eBook
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013908568

INFINITY PUBLISHING
1094 New DeHaven Street, Suite 100
West Conshohocken, PA 19428-2713
Toll-free (877) BUY BOOK
Local Phone (610) 941-9999
Fax (610) 941-9959
www.buybooksontheweb.com

To Paul
Debbie and Larry
Greg and Palmer
Jeff and Amy

Being with you is like having Christmas all the time!

I grew up watching Christmas specials on TV. Most Christmas specials featured pretty girls and handsome men with perfect hair and perfect singing voices who could dance as well. They were generally pictured caroling around the piano or cavorting in the crisp white snow. When families were featured, the obedient children were gathered quietly around the dinner table, hands perfectly folded, waiting patiently for white-haired Grandpa to share a story or some words of wisdom before saying grace.

My own Christmas memories arent anything like that. The snow usually didnt arrive in time for Christmas, but was more likely to appear on Easter Sunday! We didnt sing carols around the piano, although we made a few attempts to play carols on various instruments in a makeshift family band. (This usually disintegrated as the band members found the carols to be virtually unrecognizable from what they thought they were playing and audience members suddenly remembered all kinds of reasons why they really had to be going.)

But I do have lots of Christmas memories. Some of them are humorous. Some are poignant. Some are just odd. Through the years, my friends who have heard these stories said that I had to write a book. So now I have done just that.

In Latin verbs, the imperfect tense conveys continuing action, something that keeps happening over and over again. The word imperfect in English has come to mean defective, having blemishes or faults. Both of these meanings are conveyed in my title. At Christmas, oddball stuff keeps happening over and over again. So Ive taken a few stories from the many possible candidates and finally put them together in the book that I have been threatening to write for years. Perhaps you will recognize yourself or your family in some of these vignettes. Even if you dont, I hope you will enjoy them. They are written just as they happened, without addition or embellishment. This book is not great literature, but it is true. Tis a poor thing, but my own!

Some of my most vivid childhood memories of the Christmas season are from the Lutheran church in which I was raised. The somber, dark purple tones of Advent gave our anticipation of Christmas a sense of mystery and awe which, however briefly, lifted us out of the mud and slush of our typical Philadelphia winters and prepared us for the glorious pageantry of the Christmas Eve service. On Christmas Eve, the sanctuary was bathed in the light of what seemed to be a thousand candles. The stained glass windows, the ponderous sounds of the pipe organ, and the joyous notes of the choir transported all of us to the gates of heaven where we caught just a glimpse of how wonderful it would be in the presence of God.

Nevertheless, as splendid as this vision might be at Christmas, there was still a lot of dumb stuff to be slogged through on the way there. For me, one big part of the dumb stuff to be endured prior to Christmas was the annual Sunday School pageant. Now I know that for most people, this is fondly remembered as one of the highlights of the year. I am not one of those people. For me, the annual Sunday School Christmas pageant was an exercise in endurance. It was more a test of how much and for how long I could stand to be humiliated.

Back in the 1950s, the Sunday School Christmas pageant was viewed as a major event. It was supposed to be as good as a professional performance. No mistakes were allowed. (If there had been any forgotten lines or wardrobe malfunctions, they would still be talked about to this day. I have never heard of any and I certainly never saw any.) In my church, the Christmas pageant was not seen as an evangelical outreach. There was no attempt to include children who might be marginal in church life. It was not intended to encourage those who didnt fit inthe fat ones, the dumb ones, or the unpopular ones. Back then, there were no big concerns about a childs low self-esteem or damaged psyche. The Sunday School Christmas pageant was only for those who would perform perfectly and look good doing it. Therefore, the main standard for casting in the pageant was behavior. Impeccable behavior in church and Sunday School certainly put a child on the fast track toward garnering one of the principal roles.

Since there were more parts in the pageant for boys than girls and there were always more girls than boys available, some liberties had to be taken with the casting. This fact caused a significant double standard in the behavior required. There always seemed to be room for one more shepherd, no matter how rowdy he might be. However, a girl who wanted to play the part of an angel pretty much had to be one in real life.

The plum role in the Christmas pageant was Mary, the mother of Jesus. In my church, she was really the only woman in all of Christianity who mattered. Mary didnt matter as much to Lutherans as she did to my Roman Catholic friends, but we Lutheran girls took what we could get. She mattered a great deal during the Christmas season. I envied my Catholic cousins who got to talk about her all year, celebrated special days devoted just to her, and were allowed to have figurines of her in their homes, their gardens, and even on their car dashboards. Back then, no Lutheran could get away with any of that. We didnt have any idea what the punishment for such sin might be, but we knew we didnt want to find out!

Our churchs recognition of Mary was over by the stroke of midnight on December 26. She would be summarily dismissed from view until the beginning of Advent the following year. Still, she was the Big Deal during the Christmas season and no more so than during the Sunday School pageant. I longed for the day that I would be the one to play her role.

During my first couple of years of pageant eligibility, I was cast as one of the Wise Men. I was always uncomfortable with this because of the male/female thing, but we didnt have many boys to work with and those we had were very small. At this age, I towered over all the boys, so I seemed to be a logical choice for a Wise Man. (As I said before, childrens sensibilities were not factored into the equation. Whether or not I would be embarrassed by being a Wise Man was not a consideration. I did not dare to say anything, for fear of being left out of the pageant entirely.)