Indians Attack Christmas Village

When my mom passed away 3 years ago, I inherited her Christmas Village collection. Many are the precious memories I have of the joy she found in setting up her extravagant and plentiful array of winter scenery, figures and homes and shops. Center stage was the large, animated, musical ice rink which my own young children (at that time) spent hours enjoying. Grandma allowed them to touch, listen, interact and imagine as they played (ever so carefully) at the edge of that miniature skating pond.
This lighted display now adorns one corner of my own living room. Set up much less precisely and significantly more quickly, still the essence of her memory adds to all my family’s pleasure in the recreated village. The collection represents a heritage of fond, treasured recollections of a time gone by, never to be recaptured in quite the same way or with the same group of beloved family members. Grandma’s smile is now but a memory.
The fleeting nature of today’s joys echo from this corner, as well.
And with this message, a caution is whispered: “Enjoy now, this day; don’t waste even one precious opportunity of the present!”
My own, soon-to-be 12 year old son, cache of plastic Indians and soldiers in hand, approaches the serene village setting.
I smile at this regular, yearly ritual. It will be repeated many times before the holiday décor is packed away.
Soon my placid, peaceful cottages and boutiques are lined with bright green military men, flanked closely by headressed red and yellow Indians.
No spot is too sacred; these men hide in the spires of the church and fill the turrets and balconies as well as line the steps of the most elegant Victorian homes.
If the inhabitants of this village were real, blood curdling screams would no doubt be heard by the genteel women residing therein!
I watch and consider…
All too soon, army men and imaginary battles will be replaced by teenage toys; girls will likely be noticed at some point, and then I will blink and he will loom taller than I.
Memories of army men and good-night kisses will be a distant past heirloom, to be fondly remembered as yesterday’s joy.
I dare not waste these pleasures as they happen today.
Enjoy the delights of this day. Simple yet profound, priceless yet unpretentious. They will never call out to you if you neglect them; they will simply slip by unnoticed, robbing you.
Kiss your child. Hug and linger in your loved one’s arms. Smile in the eyes of the one to whom you say good night.
Whatever stage of life your ‘today’ is, waste not its joy.
God’s goodness does not wait for a time yet tomorrow, nor is it bound in a time from the past.
His joys are given and often found in the unadorned, common whispers all around you today.
Be glad in the army men/village scene of your life.
The plastic pieces will all too soon by picked up and put away for good.