I do not think that I spent much time back then reflecting on the value of family ties or the need to keep in touch with those whom you don t see on a regular basis. I love to have those folks visit, and I love to visit them in return. Visiting has always been an important part of the Christmas story. At the very beginning of Advent, we remember in prayer that Jesus came to visit us in great humility. Some brought gifts, we are told, but most of them just brought themselves.
Presence is the stuff of visiting.
When I look back on those Christmastide family visits of my childhood, I begin to understand that the exchange of gifts was secondary to the visit itself. While we children played our games, the adults were engaged in a ritual of family renewal. It was a time to swap stories, catch up on each other s lives, reminisce about the past and remember those who were absent or no longer living. In our own way, I suppose, we children were doing something similar, even though our reckoning of it was probably a little less well defined. The time lapse troubled no one.