Christmas in Montreal

Growing up, Christmas always meant the family trip to Montreal to spend the holidays with my grandparents.  The trip was always an event that I looked forward to.  We always packed the vacation with outings to neat locations in the city, family get togethers, shopping sprees and winter activities.  In the morning we might be ice skating down the frozen St. Lawrence river, spend the afternoon strolling down the cobblestones of Old Montreal and the evening having dinner at my great uncle’s city condo, or walking through the snow accented lightings and decorations of the downtown.

Christmas day was no less of a blur; opening presents, attending mass, large family dinners.  As it is for many of us, adults and children alike, the season seems to fly by with barely a chance to have a silent moment, let alone a whole night!  By the time the extended family said their goodbyes for another year and drove off into the Christmas sunset, everyone was so full of the holiday season they could puke.

As I grew a little older, I started adding a new tradition to my Christmas day.  I would head off and take a walk.  The wind was usually quite brisk (and sometimes downright brutal) coming off of the icy St. Lawrence river.  The snow always seemed so deep, (but that could be simply because I was so short) and the streets were alway quiet and clear.  More times than not, the sky was simply full of stars lighting up the blue tinged landscape.

I would walk along way along the bank of the river under that starry night.  I would think and I would pray.  I remember once thinking that about Mary on her own “silent night”; cows mooing, sheep bleating, labor pains, babies crying, stars twinkling, hormonic angels, screaming shepherds, all of creation celebrating.  Phew!  Sounds like a long, noisy night!

But when all was said and done, and the baby fell asleep and the shepherds when back to watching their flocks by night, the book of Luke lets us in on one final event that took place that night.

Luke 2:19, “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

I like to think that Mary, somewhere after it all happened, got a brief moment of her silent night.  I can only imagine what went through her head.  Surely she knew her life would never be the same.  Humanity itself would never be the same.  The Messiah had come.

God Himself had come.

For me, Christmas will be all the celebration and the fun, the holiness and the blessing.  But my favorite parts are those rare glimpses of something eternal that you get under those still, starry skies.  Those are the moments I love to ponder.  Those are the moments I love to treasure in my own heart.