Introduction
I hesitate to admit how old I was when I discovered the Santa Claus reality. After all, he had visited our ward in Vale, Oregon for years and seemed pretty genuine to me! During the evening of our ward party we received “authentic” reports about how close Santa was getting to our town until we children were whipped into a frenzy of anticipation. As my mother energetically played “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” everyone fairly shouted the song out, knowing from years past that he was about to burst through the door shaking his sleigh bells enthusiastically! The routine never varied and was a favorite part of our Christmas celebration. Santa was indeed jolly, and had his ho-ho-ho down to perfection as he led us in singing several upbeat Christmas songs, called many of us by name, and presented us with a little bag of treats. Truly it was magical!
On one of these nights when I was about eleven, I was sitting on the front row as Santa danced and sang and enchanted us children. As I watched his feet I noticed that he wore shoes exactly like my father’s shoes, right down to the scuff mark on the toe. I turned to tell Daddy about this coincidence but he was not sitting behind me as he had been earlier. I felt an unmistakable pang of doubt in my heart, but refused to give place to it. Later at home, I noticed that Daddy’s cheeks were much rosier than usual. . . I didn’t tell my parents that I knew because I wasn’t even ready to admit it to myself yet.
Mother’s Enthusiasm for Christmas
Every year during the month of December my mother’s excitement was palpable. She loved this season! We children knew our parents had little money—farmers struggled to make a living back then—so we asked for little. But Mother always managed to discover our heart’s desires, and find a way to provide special Christmas gifts for us. Looking back now, as an adult, I don’t know how she managed.
It would be hard to pick a favorite Christmas memory since they were all so nice, but one Christmas definitely stays strong in my memory. Mother loved dolls, sewing doll clothes, and fixing their hair, etc. Each year my sister Ann and I received dolls with very nice clothes that Mother had sewn herself. Ann loved hers! I thought they were nice but never spent much time playing with them. One December when I was nine, Mother said, “Jani, what would you really like for Christmas? I don’t think it is dolls, is it?” I looked at her tentatively, not wanting to hurt her feelings, and said nothing. She said, “I really want to know, please tell me.” I didn’t want her to be disappointed that she had a tomboy for a daughter, but eventually I blurted out the answer: “I would like a cowgirl outfit with a holster and gun and a football!” She laughed and hugged me. I still love to look at a picture we took that Christmas Day which shows me in my full cowgirl outfit, beaming, with a football tucked under my arm.
A BYU Christmas
The Christmases of my teenage years passed very happily and I found myself studying music at Brigham Young University. The fall quarter of my sophomore year had ended, and I was most anxious to return home to Oregon to be with my family at Christmas time. I had been dating a man who knew of my love for poetry, and he gave me a present of a huge anthology of the kind of poetry he knew I loved. He was upstairs in my dorm giving me the present when my roommate Delma whispered in my ear that Douglas Perry was downstairs wanting to say goodbye as he was leaving for Chicago for the holidays. I convinced Delma to entertain Don, and excused myself for a few minutes.
Doug and I had only been dating for a short time, but we both had felt a healthy spark of romance developing! He had a little present for me—a tiny book called The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. In the front he had written, “Jani, May the careful, thoughtful perusal of these pages ever deepen your love of beauty and your understanding of life. May your eyes ever see the glow of the after-light on the autumn leaves when the sun returns home. May you ever enjoy the colt frisking in the tall grass. May you know the love and happiness of true friends. May I be one, Doug.” Oh, I thought that was so poetic, beautiful and romantic! We hugged and said goodbye and neither one of us felt quite so excited about leaving for Oregon and Illinois for Christmas!
Later that night in my dorm bedroom, Delma said, “Well, it’s not hard to see which one you love—you threw the big anthology of poetry book on your bed and haven’t looked at it since. You’ve been carrying around that tiny book all day, reading little parts of it and sighing!” I have read and reread that little book during the fifty plus years Doug and I have been married, still recalling the feelings of the day when I first received it.
Christmas with Our Own Family
We have enjoyed so many wonderful Christmases with our own children. They all blend together into one happy whole for me when I remember the Christmases when they were little children. Later, a favorite Christmas tradition for me was placing a picture of our current missionary atop the Christmas tree as Steve served in Belgium, Robb in Korea, Lynne in Washington D.C. and John in Argentina. The tradition was generally accompanied by a few tears for missing them but abundant joy that they were willing and able to serve.
Happy/Sad Christmases
Sometimes during December I scan the obituary page, knowing that those who have lost loved ones during the Christmas season, especially children, will forever feel a certain melancholy at this time of year. I know, because I have felt it. During Doug’s graduate school days in Indiana we were expecting our fifth child and had concerns for him because the cure for Rh-factor blood incompatibility, which we had, had come too late for us. The effects are progressive with each birth so we knew our baby was at risk. At seven months doctors tried experimental methods to try and save him but he was born the next day. They exchanged his blood, Doug gave him a name and blessing in the nursery, and we watched and prayed for the five hours he lived.
Christmas feelings and festivities were in full swing all around us as we returned home the next day. Friends came to offer sympathy and support. But I felt as if I were observing things from a distance. Perhaps for the first time I experienced Christmas as I’m sure it was meant to be, caring nothing for the commercial aspects of the season, but feeling a deep and abiding appreciation for my children, my husband, and the gifts of the Spirit. I wanted only to bask in the new insights this event had stirred in me. Just as one baby’s coming had changed the course of the world, our baby’s coming had changed us in a very real way.
It had given us new sensitivity and understanding, new experience with the Comforter, and new determination to live worthy to be where Richie surely is. These feelings are replayed in our hearts each Christmas season.
Imagine our joy nearly twenty years later when we learned that our first grandchild was due to be born on Christmas Day! Of course babies rarely arrive on their due date but just anticipating the birth in December was exciting. When Christmas Eve came with no signs of an imminent birth we all settled in for the wait. But then the call came at 7 AM Christmas morning and I heard our son Robb’s voicing saying, “Mom, we’re at the hospital and they’re not sending us home! Stand by and I’ll keep you posted on Kim’s progress.” Instantly this Christmas held an excitement unequalled by any Christmas past. Each phone call sent the adrenaline pumping and finally at 3 PM we received the news that little Jessica Noelle had made her entrance into this world. We could not hold back the happy tears when we saw her through the nursery window, au naturale, kicking and crying and looking strangely familiar! Later as she was placed in my arms, the years melted away, in my mind. This was the first time since Richie’s passing that I had held a newborn and felt complete joy.
Joy in Service
During the Church’s Sesquicentennial Celebration year, they requested that each Relief Society identify and become involved in at least one on-going service project in their community. I was serving as Relief Society President in my Provo ward at the time and we decided to focus on a different place to serve each month. It was ambitious, but with the help of a wonderful chairman for each month it went smoothly and blessed us all. Three projects at the end of the year particularly affected me.
We set up a schedule of regular visitors for a woman in our ward who had been placed in a nursing home and had no visitors. She beamed as we came, and we all found that she had some marvelous stories to share with us. Both the gift and the givers were blessed.
We served one day a week at a homeless shelter, not only bringing hot casseroles but staying to serve the food and also to sit with the people as they ate. I have heard some say that the homeless only reap what they have sown, and have little sympathy for their plight, but as I listened to their stories I came to feel that most of them had difficult circumstances in their lives that were beyond their control, which had brought them to this point in their lives. I silently vowed to not judge, but just help.
We visited the Women’s Prison in Draper, Utah, and enjoyed their Relief Society Services with them. They sang the same hymns, prayed the same prayers, and taught the same lesson as we did in our Relief Society meetings. They had the same hopes and dreams for their families. Their mistakes had just been a little bigger, or more obvious. One day we brought things for making Christmas crafts with the prisoners and had a wonderful time supervising as they made gifts for their families, and wrote down the address where we could send these gifts to their loved ones. This was a favorite Christmas activity for all who participated.
A Missionary Christmas
The year 2002 found us in Talagante, Chile, serving our full-time mission. The weather was sunny and hot for this Christmas season and was passing almost without notice. We purchased no presents and expected none, but just went about our missionary work as usual. I wanted to write a Christmas cantata in Spanish for our district choir but had to admit my Spanish was not good enough to take on such a task. One night as I prayed for an idea for a musical Christmas experience, it came to me.
I opened my English Bible to the Christmas story, then I opened my Spanish Bible to the same place. I read in English until I knew what I wanted to say in a narration of the Christmas story, and then I found the same verses in Spanish and typed them into my script. The Christmas hymns from the Spanish hymnbook and Children’s Songbook served nicely as the music, and I wrote simple arrangements of them for our fledgling (but large and enthusiastic) choir. Doug conducted and I accompanied the district choir and we had a joyous experience with them as they performed their first-ever Christmas program. The women wore white blouses with colorful red and green homemade corsages, and the men wore white shirts with red ties, and they sang with heart! One sister, in her enthusiasm, asked me, “Hermana, are we as good as the Tabernacle Choir yet?” I loved her spirit and told her, “When we have been singing as long as they have, I feel sure we will be just as good!”
An Unforgettable Rendition of “Silent Night”
Just before Christmas in 2001, my husband’s siblings and their spouses met at the home of his aged parents Rolland and Miriam Perry. My ninety-three year old mother-in-law’s health had declined rapidly during the last few months and it was apparent that she would now need constant nursing attention at a care center. No one wanted to make this decision, least of all her husband, so it was a melancholy group that gathered around her bedside that night.
No one had much to say, each person was just alone with his thoughts. I suddenly turned to my father-in-law and said, “Dad, you know how Mom loves to hear you sing, why don’t you sing ‘Silent Night’ to her one last time?” I had heard him sing love songs to her on their 60th wedding anniversary program, and even one song on their 70th, but still I wasn’t sure how he would respond in this tender circumstance. Dad, who was ninety-five years old and nearly blind, stood regally at the foot of Mom’s bed and softly started singing, “Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright. . . .” When he had finished the final verse, despite the tears in our eyes at having witnessed such a poignant moment, we all felt reassured and calm that all would be well.
A Moment of Christmas Worship
Years ago, in a true moment of introspection about the Christmas season, I penned lyrics and wrote music to a song entitled, “Lord, I Worship Thee.” I have sung it privately in my music studio through every Christmas season since then, to keep things in perspective when some of the trappings of Christmas are drawing me away from the real meaning of the day.
On that busy pre-Christmas day in 1989, when I had far more things on my to-do list than I could possibly accomplish, I suddenly rebelled. I packed a small bag with my scriptures, pencils, music manuscript paper, and a few food items, jumped in our Blazer and headed for our cabin in Hobble Creek Canyon east of Springville. I felt the pressure melt away as I was driving through the canyon to that peaceful haven.
Once inside I fixed a cup of hot chocolate and a sandwich for lunch and then took a delicious nap for almost two hours. When I awakened I felt peaceful and I prayed a prayer of gratitude for some time and then felt the urge to write a new Christmas song. Once I had given expression to my feelings through this song, I went for a quiet walk and was then ready to return home in a much better frame of mind. I share the words here in case they may help someone else keep the proper Christmas focus.
Lord, I Worship Thee
I love to see the friendly sights of Christmas,
The shoppers and the presents by the tree.
But every year I like to pause
Far from noise and Santa Claus,
To ponder what His coming means to me;
To speak these gentle words on bended knee:
“Lord, I worship Thee.”
I love to hear the happy sounds of Christmas,
The music of the season touches me.
But I must find a quiet place
Far from noise and hurried pace
To offer praise to heaven privately;
To sing my song where only He can see:
“Lord, I worship Thee.”
I love the way the world feels at Christmas.
The happy crowds are beautiful to see.
But also I need time to dream
Far from worldly Christmas scenes,
To close my eyes and feel Him near to me;
To covenant once again so willingly:
“Lord, I worship Thee.”
Janice Kapp Perry: Composer, author, lecturer
