Thursday's Internet Edition, September 09, 2010.
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- Van Horn Main Street, following last Saturday’s Annual Lighted Christmas Parade, announced the winners of the float contest.
In making the announcement, spokesman Jeff McCoy commented, “Every year our float entries just seem to get better and better. It certainly is what makes our event so popular in West Texas.”
Named as the 1st Place float this year was the float entered by the Van Horn and Culberson County 4-H Club. The club will receive prize money amounting to $200 which is donated annually by the Van Horn Chamber of Commerce.
The 2nd Place float this year was entered by the Seventh Day Adventist Church. They will receive $150 for their entry donated by the Van Horn Chamber of Commerce.
The 3rd Place winner in this year’s event was Easley Trucking. They will receive $100 for their efforts. The money is donated by the Van Horn Chamber of Commerce.
And, the 4th Place winner this year is the entry from the Culberson County Sheriff’s Department. For their efforts, they will receive $50 in prize money donated by the Van Horn Chamber of Commerce.
Judges for this year’s Lighted Christmas Parade were Andre Sekanovich, Mario Villanueva, and Suzy King.
In addition to the parade, Main Street also sponsored a Show and Sell event in front of and inside the Clark Hotel Historical Museum.
This event featured local and out of town vendors displaying there crafts and handiwork as well as provided all sorts of goodies to eat.
The Convention Center staff and Main Street Van Horn expressed their deep appreciation to everyone who participated or attended these event last Saturday evening. Without your participation, it would not have been as successful.
Christmas
Eve
Candlelight
Service
December 24th
7 p.m.
First United Methodist Church
Everyone Welcome!
Column One
By Dawn Simpson
I trust by now most of your preparations for Christmas are complete and you’re just down to the wrapping of gifts and cooking all that wonderful food that makes the holiday season so special (unfortunately so fattening as well). Would you believe that we still have one big decorating item to do - the Christmas Tree! We have the house all decorated inside and thought we might get by without putting up the huge tree this year. Well, when we mentioned it to the grandchildren on Sunday, that idea did not go over well at all. According to them, it just wouldn’t be the same, no matter how many other decorations there are. We actually have four small trees throughout the house, but those don’t count I guess.
But I’m actually glad that they are so ‘traditional-minded’. I think that makes for family memories that last forever. I’d really enjoy hearing about some of the family traditions that you and your family have for the holidays. Many of those special memories involve family and I hope you all have plenty of family around you for Christmas.
One of the Christmas decorations that goes up first in our house is the Nativity - or you might call it a Creche or a Manger Scene. When our grandchildren were smaller they enjoyed helping put it out and knew the story well as they carefully put out each figure. Of course they hardly ever agreed on the same placement - how close Mary and Joseph should be to Baby Jesus, or which way the Wise Men should be facing, and exactly where the animals should be. Even now, as they are older, I occasionally find one or two of the pieces moved around from where I had placed them.
A few years ago we had a devotional book from Guideposts that so sweetly talked about each character in the Nativity. One of their writers, Sue Monk Kidd, took a different one on each Sunday of Advent and made them seem so human, as if she were right there in Bethlehem in that stable with them. Here are just three of them - Joseph, Mary and the Baby Jesus.........
JOSEPH - I place the creche figure in the stable, remembering the village carpenter who took a young expecting girl as his wife, rather than put her away in shame. I must have been difficult for Joseph to accept Mary’s child into his life.
The night lies deep and silent as I enter the Bethlehem cave. Mary sleeps, exhausted from childbirth. Only Joseph remains awake, sitting beside a small fire, holding the child to keep him warm.
I remain in the shadows, unwilling to intrude. For Joseph is talking, his words soft as snowflakes falling down around the baby. “Oh, beautiful child, how close I came to rejecting you!” he says. “Forgive me. I was hurt and confused. It was so strange - my beloved Mary, a virgin, expecting a child. It seemed impossible.”
The baby coos in his lap, making Joseph smile. “So, you are the Messiah, eh? Well, I hope the Messiah likes wagons. I’m going to build you the best one in Nazareth. And when you’re older I’ll teach you to build things yourself.” Joseph laughs, dreaming, perhaps, of one day pulling the young boy over the hills of Galilee.....of teaching him to hold a hammer and hit a nail straight. He places his finger in the baby’s hand. The tiny fingers curl around it, filling Joseph with love. “Welcome, my son,” he says.
MARY - I add her figure to the creche, thinking of the young woman from Nazareth, chosen to bear God’s Son. Did her hand tremble just a little when she heard the impossible demand? Saying “yes” to such a proposal could mean losing her beloved Joseph, her family’s support. Under the law she could even be prosecuted and stoned. Yet Mary, caught suddenly in the fullness of time, stilled her thudding heart and said, “Let it be done to me according to Your word.”
Soon after the announcement she had to leave her village to stay with relatives. Perhaps gossip forced her to leave. Perhaps it was the doubt in Joseph’s face or anxiety over her future. Then there was the long, uncomfortable journey to Bethlehem where she ended up giving birth in an animal stall, separated from her family back home. So many hardships and risks. Mary....how did you do it?
I gaze at the little creche, imagining myself stepping inside the stable. Inside a baby is crying. I watch Mary stumble sleepily toward him and lift the child in her arms. She rubs her finger gently across the child’s cheek, her face lined with traces of suffering. “It hasn’t been easy for you lately,” I say, unable to hold back my sympathy. For she is so young, so in need of a mother herself.
Mary turns a soft smile in my direction. Despite the suffering, a curious, almost radiant peace glows in her eyes. “Yes,” she answers. “But at every difficulty, God has poured His Presence into my life. It is more than enough.”
I slip back into my own world, thinking of the difficulties that come here, too, even at Christmas - sometimes especially at Christmas. Rush, crowds, disappointment, separation, exhaustion, anxiety. But that was Mary’s Christmas, too!
THE BABY JESUS - Now is the moment. We place the Christ Child inside the nativity scene, making it complete. With this act we acknowledge in our heart the deepest mystery of all. God has come! In a tiny child God arrives among us, making life complete...meeting our deepest need.
There seems little else to discover about the baby on the straw. Still, I close my eyes and journey back to Bethlehem.....Dawn glows on the horizon, sending shards of pink light across the sky. Inside the stable Joseph packs three gifts onto the back of a donkey. Mary tends the baby, struggling to wrap the pieces of swaddling around his squirming arms and legs. “My, what a wiggler you are,” she says, finally spinning the little cocoon around him. Now he frets sleepily. “Won’t you go to sleep while I get ready to leave?” Mary asks. But as she lays him on the manger hay, his newborn cry pierces the stable.
“Please....let me”, I say. She eyes me gratefully as I lift the Christ Child into my arms. I rock him gently. Gradually his crying stops. His eyes flutter close. The Christ Child sleeps. I hold him, warmed by the thought that here in the Bethlehem stable I’ve met some tiny need for him.
The thought overwhelms me. For all at once I recognize something I’ve never quite seen before. Christmas is not only about our needing God; it is also about God’s needing us! Christmas helps us understand that the spirit that dwelt in Jesus is meant for us, too. God needs us to love the world as He does.....to go about our lives as Christ did. He needs us to hold Him in our heart, lifting Him up to the world by the way we live. God became what we are so we could start to become what He is.
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Do you have a Nativity among your Christmas decorations? If not, maybe next year you might consider adding one to your celebration. And each year as you get it out and carefully place each piece in it’s place, it will remind you that these were real people, and this tiny baby went from the Manger......to the Cross to be our Savior.
Have a wonderful Christmas!