A Little Women Christmas

Laura Booz: We laid a runner of burlap down the length of the farm table and placed white candles in silver candlesticks all around. In the center of the table, we fill a big galvanized pail with freshly cut greens, straight from one of our pine trees in the woods. It smelled beautiful. And the little golden flames flickered in the room. 

Hi there, you’re listening to Expect Something Beautiful with Laura Booz. 

I probably should have just postponed the Christmas party. I should have. And when you find out why, you’re going to have a hard time letting me live this down. 

But I’m telling you, I was just so caught up in the magic of it all. It was going to be our first annual Little Women Christmas party. 

Over the past few months, I had read the book to our children, and we invited some friends over. We were going to have a Little Women Christmas feast, and then gather in the living room to watch the film together. 

On the night of the Christmas party, we decorated this old farmhouse to make Marmee, Meg, Jo, and Beth, and Amy proud. Ten chairs waited expectantly for our guests. 

We turned on background music that was straight out of the Civil War era. And even though we didn’t have our hairdos and our costumes just, we sure felt like our skirts were swishing as we bustled about the kitchen. 

Our menu was inspired by the March’s own Christmas breakfast. We grilled pork sausages, arranged juicy slices of oranges, had warmed dinner rolls, and we had smoothed whipped butter in a crock. Our simple chocolate cake came out of the oven, just in time to cool. 

One of my daughters claimed the job of the sugar shaker, and she sprinkled powdered sugar across the crackled surface, and arranged some holly leaves and blue berries for decorations. And just before the guests came, we placed our vintage copy of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women against a white bowl of oranges. 

It was just right.

Well, there was just one little thing amiss. I could hear my two-year-old throwing a fit upstairs. Her nap had gone late, and she was positively miserable. Her stomping feet and dismal cries echoed through the floorboards, and there was nothing I could do to appease her. 

I tried every tactic in the book, but she would have none of it . . . until the guests arrived. Then that little girl forgot her troubles and came downstairs to see our friends. She had that look on her face, you know the one. Totally worn out from her pre-party fit, but ready to leave it all behind and move on into the magic. 

The meal was delicious, and I will always remember the faces of the darling little girls around the table. Oh, they melted my heart. 

We each shared a favorite Christmas tradition. One of the little girls said, “eggnog.” Another said, “I love when we all pile on the couch at my grandparents house.” A third said, “I just love getting there.” We could all relate. 

After dessert, we ladled the mulled apple cider into warm mugs and popped popcorn. We all were bustling about the kitchen at that point, and yet something else went amiss. See, one girl feeling so grown up, ladled her apple cider onto her friend’s hand. Her friend yelped and ran to the kitchen and plunged her hand into a bowl of cold water. 

Sticky cider dribbled over the countertop onto the floor. And the little girl with the ladle in her hand ran and hid behind her mom, so embarrassed and feeling so badly about the accident. And all of us moms jumped to it and said, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” We consoled all of the girls; we cleaned up the mess.

And no sooner had we gathered everyone into the living room, turned the lights down low, started the movie, when my oldest daughter jumped to her feet and screamed, “She threw up again!”

At which point one of my friends repeated “again?!” 

See, the little thing that you didn’t know and that they didn’t know is that, that precious little two-year-old had thrown up earlier in the day. I thought it was just fluke. I thought that maybe she had just eaten something wrong. There was no fever. I didn’t piece together the vomit, and the late nap, and the crankiness, until there we were in the middle of it all. 

The lights went back on, everybody left the room, and I started in to clean her up, clean off the couch and the ottoman, and the pillow, and the floor. While I disinfected the couch, I wondered if our friends would want to stay and finish the movie or if they would grab their coats and scurry out the door. I certainly wouldn’t blame them if they did. 

But they stayed. Probably figuring it was too late now. I tucked that poor little baby into bed. We popped some fresh popcorn, ladled some cider, and gathered back in the living room for the beloved movie. 

Needless to say, I had the couch all to myself for the remainder of the night. 

At the end of the evening, as the credits rolled and we wiped tears from our eyes, we hugged and said goodbye to one another and sent our guests on their way. But I laid in bed that night, wondering if it was a good party or not? Was it all that magical? Was it special? Or did the vomit ruin everything? Would the mothers now have to worry for the next two days if their own child would start vomiting all over their couches and ottomans and pillows and floors? Would it ruin their entire Christmas season?

Ugh . . . I felt that old ache of remorse, when special things like parties, aren’t perfect. 

It’s hard not to focus in on that one thing that didn’t go right; that one thing that you can’t go back and do over; that one thing that you wish you could make go away. I felt a lot like maybe a little girl who had ruined something or broken something. I turned to our heavenly Father and I just said, “Is everything okay?” 

It’s funny as I laid in bed, I remembered this passage of Scripture. I actually had to look it up in my Bible to read it word for word. It’s from 1 Corinthians chapter 11. And it says, 

The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

I realized for the first time that if Jesus hadn’t made a special effort to celebrate the Passover with His friends, to speak to them dearly, and to fellowship and to feast with them, that night would simply be that night that He was betrayed. The specially chosen room, the food, the wine, the sitting close, the conversation, the washing of the feet, the blessing, it all transformed the tragedy of He was betrayed into history’s singular celebration dinner: The Lord’s Supper. A glorious sacrament, cherished by Christians all over the world, remembering Jesus. 

The terrible part of the night, He was betrayed, fades into powerlessness when the cup is lifted and the bread is passed amongst friends. 

And our humble night around the farm table, well, I’m certainly not equating it with the Passover supper, but I realized that maybe without the party, it would have just been the night the little girl burnt her hand with apple cider, or the night the little girl hid behind her mother in embarrassment, or the night the baby vomited all over everything and potentially contaminated three families full of children at Christmas time.

But there was candlelight and laughter. There was real delicious sausage and orange slices. There was chocolate cake with holly berries and a sugar shake. There were stories and snuggling, tears and laughter, grace and love. There were mothers and daughters gathered together at Christmas time. It was a small glimpse of redemption—I’ll take it. 

If your circumstances are difficult this year, or if your holiday party isn’t exactly what you imagined or wanted, maybe you could shift your perspective toward heaven and see that even in the midst of hard things, and even in the midst of disappointments, every good and perfect gift comes from God.

His goodness and glories of celebration make life’s inevitable mistakes, regrets, and disasters, bearable. They remind us that a perfect party is coming. 

Merry Christmas, my friends. 

You’ve been listening to Expect Something Beautiful with Laura Booz. 

Expect Something Beautiful is a production of Revive Our Hearts calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. 

“Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” Porter Music Box Co., Music Box Christmas ℗ 1980 Porter Music Box Co.