Seeing Stars

Christmas secrets are fun! I love thinking about how to bring a smile of delight to someone's face. Some people are easy to please - you can think of a million things they would like. Others take a bit more study to select the perfect gift for. Tonight I started wrapping presents I selected for my grandchildren. I took out the Christmas wrapping paper with the penguin motif (seems to be a very popular theme this year), closed the door of my bedroom, and sat on the edge of the bed, cutting the paper to just the right size for each toy or book, folding the edges into crisp lines, tacking it in place with Scotch tape.

I tried to imagine how the grandkids would react on Christmas morning, remembering the delight with which my siblings and I attacked the stack of colorfully wrapped presents under our tree. It always looked like such a gigantic mound of gifts, but then, there were ten of us altogether and it did add up to a small mountain.

Wrapping is the part of Christmas I hate the most, maybe right after battling the crowds. When will I ever learn to shop early and get gift bags! There is no help for it, this labor of love. Cut, fold, tape, label. Cut, fold, tape, label. Sigh. I remember one year my grandfather wrapped his gift to gramma in a deer hide tied up with a rope. We all giggled over that unique presentation.

Even after I thought I had wrapped everything, I discovered two more things I had tucked away. I dragged the scissors and tape out once more and went at it again with all the enthusiasm of a dead fish jumping into a frying pan.

At last it was done - at least, the gifts for the grandchildren. Wrapping the presents for my own kids will come next weekend. I stuck the tape and scissors back in the drawer, rolled up the tube of paper and stuck it in the corner for later. Then I lay back on my cot and stared at the ceiling, relieved to have accomplished the back breaking task, smiling that I was blessed to be able to do my own shopping and wrapping, that I had funds to get presents, that I had grandchildren! I smiled and tucked my hands behind my head, looking up at the ceiling.

That's when I saw my Christmas star. Stars, really. I had noticed them before when I first moved in. Someone had stuck two small stars on the white textured ceiling. Perhaps children had lived in this bedroom previous to our moving in. I think the stars used to glow in the dark, and there probably were lots of them, all different sizes. I have seen packages like that in stores.

Two stars had been left behind - one right by the west window, the other about two feet away towards the center of the room. They had been painted over when the apartment was prepared for us. No one likely noticed these stray stars. They blended into the rest of the patterned texture until they were all but invisible unless you were looking for them. In fact, I had clean forgotten they were there.

Now as I rested from my labors, I was delighted to see them again, these little reminders of the Christmas season. I glanced out the window at the clear night sky speckled with thousands of stars each glittering brightly in the cold darkness. It was as if two of them had escaped and come in from the cold to warm up a bit.

Worn out by all my hard work, I closed my eyes and took a short nap, dreaming of stars and angels. I have always been partial to stars and angels. Perhaps because my Persian name means star. Perhaps because I have a raffle of angels watching over me. Whatever the reason, I am happy to have a small reminder of God's goodness overhead, inside or out.