A Christmas Celebration

Sitting in my study on Christmas Eve in 2022, while there is a blizzard outside, I am remembering fondly one of my favorite celebrations of Christmas in Slovakia. It took place probably 15 or 16 years ago and was celebrated at the end of a week in July with a group of a dozen children and half that many adults.

For three years in Slovakia we organized summer residential camps for children who had a parent addicted to alcohol. For one week these children between the ages of seven and twelve were out of their normal home environment spending time with adults and other children who understood them and knew what it was like to be growing up in a family where everything revolved around alcohol.

We had decided to make the theme of this particular week of summer camp a celebration of birthdays. Many times children who live with an alcoholic parent don’t have wonderful memories of birthday and holiday celebrations. There are times when a parent doesn’t show up or someone is drunk or maybe there is no celebration. There may be fighting and tension and sometimes more tears than laughter.

We decided we would celebrate every child’s and every adult’s birthday at camp that week. Each day of the week we celebrated all those who had a birthday in a three month period. Monday we celebrated January, February and March birthdays. On Tuesday we celebrated those who had birthdays in April, May and June, and so on through Thursday. Since the children’s parents would come for them on Saturday after lunch, we reserved Friday night to celebrate Christmas and the birth of Jesus.

Paper, and stamp art material, stickers, colored pencils and everything needed to make birthday cards and write birthday wishes were available. Every afternoon there was time to prepare cards and put them in a special mailbox to be delivered to the recipients that evening. Special desserts of cake or ice cream were on the menu each day. Everyone at camp that week had a special time to be recognized and celebrated.

Joe Ann and I had a lovely artificial tree which we brought to camp. As a part of our daily activities we prepared for our Christmas celebration. The children made the decorations for the tree – paper chains, snowflake cutouts, and more. We strung the lights and added some special ornaments. One day cookies were baked and everyone decorated cookies.

On Friday we had the Jesus birthday cake, a special round, three-layer cake with a chocolate cake layer on the bottom, strawberry in the middle layer, and a layer with green food coloring on the top. The cake had white icing and around the outer circumference of the cake were chocolate hearts and in the center of the cake was a single candle.

After we finished eating our cake, we shared its symbolism. The colored cake layers represented the reason for Jesus’ coming – our sinful, fallen nature, the blood of Christ shed for us, and new life for those who receieved his gift of eternal life by trusting in him. The round cake represented the world and the chocolate hearts the people of the world. The center candle represented Jesus, the light of the world. Then we had a short program that included the Christmas story, some singing of carols and a small candle for each child to light from the larger candle and place on top of the cake.

Finally, there were gifts. A church responsible for distributing the Samaritan’s Purse shoebox gifts to children in Slovakia had some boxes left from the last Christmas. They shared them with us and we were able to put under the tree an appropriate gift box for each boy and each girl at camp filled with games, candies, stuffed animals and other items. It was a joyful time for all of us.

Tonight I hold in my mind the joy of that July Christmas celebration, remembering each child, wondering what has become of them and saying a prayer that they have received the gift that Jesus offered them.