I grew up in a home that loved the Christmas season. Both Dad and Mom got really creative in a festive motif. One year Dad made large candy canes from pieces of round gutter downspouts. Every year he would paint with soap water the skyline of Bethlehem beneath the Christ star on the mirror over the fireplace mantel. We searched for and harvested a pine Christmas tree. If there were empty spaces in the tree, he would drill a hole in the trunk and stick in the limb from another tree.
One year, just inside the beginning line of my memory, we borrowed a home milk delivery van to bring our tree home. While in the top of the tall tree cutting off the Christmas part, the farmer who owned the land came up. My fledging memory goes really blank at that point.
During my mid-teens, Dad and Mom were “house parents” for the Huddleston Children’s home in Centralia, Illinois. That Christmas memory has several attachments, but the one producing this blog post is of a bunch of us going Caroling. There is only one house I remember. It was the one where Leon lived. I know this because his name was on the center ledge of the front window. We were invited in for a cordial, howbeit brief, “thank you.” It was then that I saw Leon’s name spelled backward, noel. And I laughed at the new realization, and still do every Christmas, especially when we sing “The First Noel.”
This Christmas, I discovered that Alexa does not understand the difference between a Christmas song and a Christmas Carol. So, I shout across my shop, “Alexa! Play Christmas Carols!” She responds, “I have found this station on Amazon Music.” The next thing I know, I’m “Rock’n around the Christmas Tree” or worse, slithering through “Santa, Baby.” The seasonal background music in most stores seems to have a Christmas theme but seldom do I hear those songs which celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Did you know that “Christmas” was first used in the 13th century? That means there were 1,300 December twenty-fifths with no “Christmas” season. They may have celebrated the birth of Jesus, but they did not call it Christmas. According to Merriam-Webster, the word is formed by an Old English term, Cristes mæsse, literally, Christ’s mass.
Back to Leon. Like Noel, Christmas just doesn’t mean the same when celebrated backward. Backward Christmas is all about us. It is a celebration that starts out well but ends up wrong. From Christmas to “Christless-mess.”
I have mistakenly thought “noel” was another word for “Good News.” It’s not. It is good news, but it does not mean Good News. Noel comes to us through French from the Latin word, “natalis’ which means “birth” or “having to do with birth.” So, a noel is actually a birth announcement.
The carol we sing tells the story of shepherds encountering angels announcing the birth of a king, The King, my King.
Now that you are already thinking look up Leon as a baby name. There, the term has to do with a lion. So, in one respect, we might say, forward or backward, “The First Noel” is about the birth announcement of the Lion of Juda, Jesus.
Today in the city of David a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord! Luke 2:11
Photo – My Dad created our outdoor nativity scene while I held the nails. He made it out of barn wood and scrap wood in about thirty minutes. I’ve been putting it out for over thirty years.
Baldwin Heirlooms 