Every year, on a designated date after Thanksgiving, the Connells decorate our Christmas tree. Sometimes, it is planned in advance and attended to with ceremonial bluster (that is my influence), and sometimes, it is the result of spontaneously seizing a free evening amid the annual Christmas chaos that accompanies a Worship Pastor’s home at Christmas. Now that our children are older and establishing their own homes in other places, this year’s effort had to be both planned and seized.

We knew that we would have everyone under our roof briefly on Thanksgiving Day, so Mary and I made the decision in advance that we would violate my conscientious opposition to allow the ever-burgeoning Christmas season to encroach upon the sanctified day reserved for giving thanks. Even though my family members always delighted at the prospect of searching Black Friday Sales Circulars (when they were a thing) or searching the internet for this year’s promised discounts to make their Christmas lists while watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, dog show, or football, I always politely abstained. I remained a Thanksgiving Pharisee but had no converts.

This year, we had to commit the unpardonable holiday sin.

So, while the turkey and rolls had barely begun to digest in our bellies, we brought out the Christmas decorations, which consisted of boxes with each child’s name on them filled with individualized ornaments. Every year, Mary presents each child with a new ornament for the tree (she purchases these in the after-Christmas sales the previous year for this very moment). These new additions contribute to a tree filled with eclectic but personalized expressions of each child’s growth and development of interest through the years. Every child has an ornament on the tree for each year of their life that reflects something unique about them and their life. Baby pictures, superheroes, favorite sports and bands, and many other characteristics are represented by an ornament. The resulting effect on the tree resembles a head-on collision between a family time capsule and a Hallmark yard sale.

There is a moment that occurs each year that catches me off guard, and it did so again this year. As each of our children unpacks ornaments and affixes hooks to begin the process, there is a ceremonial pause (which is my cue). They know that, without fail, one particular ornament goes on the tree first. It is a very unusual, non-descript golden icicle that is packed in a worn-out green box filled with white tissue paper to protect its annual transport from storage. The box is labeled quite appropriately, “Old-fashioned Ornament.” And our children will not place a single ornament on the tree until this one is hung first.

You see, when Mary and I were newly married, we couldn’t afford any decorations or a tree of any kind. But we received the gift of this ornament that first Christmas, 26 years ago, and having nowhere to hang it, we hung it on a TV antenna (when those were still a thing). Our kids insist that we tell the story again (even though they could tell it by now), and then someone is bestowed with the honor of hanging “The First Christmas Ornament” on the tree. It is accompanied by a brief and ever so solemn hush and sometimes a tear in the corners of the parents’ eyes as memories flood back. That ornament has witnessed so many Christmases and so many expressions of God’s faithfulness to our family.

New births, new homes, new challenges, new successes, new crises, new mercies, and now even new families have been marked by this moment.

You might wonder how we decide who gets the honor of this holy moment. As with any family, there is often a quick recitation of who did it last year and who hasn’t done it in many years (some claim never to have been picked to do it). But this year, our kids quickly nominated Emma, the soon-to-be newest family member, when she and Samuel get married in early January. It happened so quickly that I had to reflect upon it later to grasp the significance of what had taken place. It was our kid’s way of saying, “Welcome to the family!”

And just like that, another holy moment was added to the legacy of this family relic and this special season. Christmas has a way of smuggling in these special moments. And for all of those past and those to come, I give thanks.