Column: Thanks for Listening

When I was a young child one of my favorite days of the year was Christmas Eve. It still is. My birthday was right up there as well and then, of course, the day school got out for the summer.

Christmas Eve was an amazing day for a few reasons. The first reason was because we only had to wait for just one more day to open presents. When I pause to think about it, it was not even a real 24-hour kind of day either because we usually woke up my weary parents at about 4:30 a.m. on Christmas morning with our screams of “Did Santa come yet?” repeated over and over.

The second reason I loved Christmas Eve so much was midnight Mass at St. Peter’s Cathedral in Marquette, Mich. Midnight Mass was just so beautiful. It was exciting to be up that late combined with the dark, starry night sky and then we walked up to the church and slowly opened the huge oak doors to find the most wonderful combination of all that makes Christmas so incredible.

My eyes could hardly adjust fast enough to take it all in. There were large and small lights sparkling everywhere combined with hundreds of poinsettias, and to top it all off, you had this old, wooden manger at the front of the sanctuary surrounded with bales of hay and the hand-crafted, four-foot sculptures of Mary and Joseph with the baby Jesus centered perfectly in a makeshift wooden cradle. The shepherds and wise men also showed up and were surrounding the manger with the donkeys and camels.

This scene that we all had learned about in school came alive as more than half of the church’s alter was turned into Bethlehem. Behind the alter, four, massive, 15-foot trees stood just strung with lights that were the perfect backdrop to this museum-like church. The giant stained-glass windows and candles just topped off what was already such an amazing display of flawless beauty.

Christmas Eve Mass also let you see families together, whereas normally you would just see one or two of your neighbors at different times during the holidays. At Christmas Eve Mass you would see the whole gang from Grandpa and Grandma right down to the newborn babies. It was peaceful to see that.

There is something special in seeing extended families at church, especially your own. The brothers and sisters we fight with, love, hug, give dirty looks to and would die for right next to me with our parents, kneeling, heroic in what they accomplished for us kids every day, week and month. We all would start to sing “Silent Night” and everything that was wrong with the previous year just seemed to melt away.

The third and final reason that Christmas Eve was so great growing up is that we got to share all our excitement with our brothers and sisters about what Santa might have gotten us.

We would tease and get teased about Santa leaving coal, and then, as I would start to doze off, one of my siblings would inevitably think they heard a reindeer on the roof, sending us all into a delirious stupor of repeating and going over the same questions about Christmas gifts again until we would then finally fall asleep for about an hour or so until one sibling would awaken all the others and the chorus of “Mom … Dad … Are you up?” would begin.

Merry Christmas to everyone and may you all share with your families and friends the love and kindness that this holiday season should bring.

Tribune Publisher Scott Schmeltzer’s column appears every Thursday.