My Christmas moment that became plural

The regular readers among you know how much I look forward to the "Christmas moment" -- that moment of spiritual peace that comes over me at some point during the holiday season that comes just before or after Dec. 25.

It's not something I go looking for, necessarily, it's just something that happens, and in years past it's usually been associated with music.

For this Christmas, there wasn't a particular moment; there wasn't a big bang moment of spiritual warmth.

Part of it, I think, was due to the frenetic nature of this particular holiday. My wife Jane and I were on the road for about 11 days, visiting family and friends in New Jersey, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Connecticut.

Living out of a traveling bag was fine, but a bit unsettling to my routine.

As a result, there were small moments to discover -- smaller pops that hit me at various times during the Christmas season. And they found me in some likely and unlikely places.

There was the moment in our church -- St. Thomas More in Durham, N.H. -- where we attended a sing-a-long of Handel's "Messiah". We weren't there to sing, which put us in the minority. We were asked a couple of times which section -- alto, soprano, bass -- we'd like to join.

But we were there to listen, to enjoy the stir of the music that resonates the meaning of Christmas.

There was the moment in my home office/music room when I played Christmas songs on a new guitar my wife Jane and I had bought as a Christmas present for a nephew. My intent was to infuse this new guitar with all kinds of acoustic music -- Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Paul Simon.

Dulcet tones from "What Child is This" and "First Noel" completed the infusion for this guitar with a sacredness that I apply to music.

There was the video posted by my friend Ken Sheldon from his December presentation of "Frost Heaves" -- a production of comedy, music and stories with a New Hampshire focus. His posting of guitarist Tom Bielecki's playing of "Joy to the World" was indeed a spriitual joy. See it here.

And there was the moment with my children, my daughter Elizabeth living in Connecticut and my son David going to graduate school in New York City.

It looked like we might not see each other for Christmas. I was headed in one direction; they were headed the other direction. But we figured out a way to get together at Elizabeth's on New Year's Day, and it turned out to be a wonderful gathering of family and significant others.

The noise of happy conservation that evening brought a calm of being content that all was right in the world, all was bright.

In search of The Moment

I am on my annual Scavenger Hunt, and it has one item on the list -- the Christmas Spirit.

Every year I am in search, actively and passively, of The Moment that I feel the spirit of the holiday. Perhaps I'm wrong to go looking for it, or even expect that it will come to me. But I do.

Often, when The Moment arrives it involves music.

Several years ago, it was during mass on Christmas Eve, while one of the carols was being sung. The woman behind me sang in beautiful harmony to the choir members on the risers at the front of the church. Last year it again involved hearing a rehearsal of Handel's "Messiah," but with my son in a church in London where he spent a semester.

I think of the spirit of Christmas and I think of the expectation and excitement of small children.

These days, however, the spiritual, magical part of Christmas is easily pushed aside by the commerce, chaos part of Christmas. The seasonal drumbeat of advertising and marketing seems to start earlier and earlier. The worse the country's economy, the earlier the drumbeat starts ... before Halloween this year. It's become like the presidential campaign: it starts too early, it lasts too long, it focuses too heavily on all the wrong things.

I made my obligatory trip to the mall, thinking I'd get in during the work week when no one else would be there. Silly me ... the place was packed with kids and parents trying to escape their homes that had no power or heat because of the severe ice storm that hit the area last week. I thought my head was going to explode. That certainly wasn't The Moment. It was more like The Wrong Moment.

I'm still on the hunt.

Have you had a Moment yet? Do you expect one, need one? Let me know by replying in the comments.