If Sherlock Holmes were assigned the task of distinguishing children from adults in our family, and he had but one question at his disposal, I know what it would be.

 

"Do you want Christmas to come more slowly, or more quickly?"

 

Everyone old enough to vote in a presidential election would have the sense to want more time... time to squeeze in a few more baking sessions, or days for decorating, time for tardy packages to arrive or one more shopping scramble. Or perhaps it would be time used simply to dilute the concentrated weeks of performances and parades, which can seem as overly sweet as drinking frozen apple juice straight from the can.

 

But the younger members of our family seem oblivious to this line of reasoning, in spite of the fact that they are likely to benefit directly from yet one more trip to the mall. Their universal cry is one of "Hurry up! Right now!" in reckless disregard to my state of readiness.

 

To help regulate this inequity of eagerness, we traditionally employ paper devices equipped with little doors to help mark the days for people too short to read the wall calendar.

 

There are other areas of my life, however, in which I too am guilty of impatience. The last days of pregnancy usually felt as overly stretched out as my abdomen. My irritability increased with the circumference of my belly as it barred visibility of my own toes. I seriously doubted whether these babies would ever come, in spite of copious evidence that pregnancy is a temporary condition.

 

As a novice gardener last summer, I found it hard to be patient. Sometimes I would prowl through the fledgling foliage twice a day, hoping for signs of edible life. Why can't carrots grow more quickly? I optimistically bought a package of asparagus seeds, but when I read that it doesn't harvest for two years I threw it away in disgust.

 

Marriage is a process that takes time to bear fruit. As the bloom of honeymoon sweetness fades, we must labor through the weeds of our own unplowed character to find a safe place for genuine love to grow. Anger and hopelessness slither in, in the nighttime of our relationships, when we somehow expected the results to come without effort, or at least so much of it.

 

Many of us have forgotten that the first Christmas was the climax of a very long wait. For centuries, prophecies opened like little paper doors to reassure a humanity of children that "Unto us a Child is born! Unto us a Son is given." Generations of wise men gazed after the silent stars before one "from the east went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was." Surely the waiters for the promised Messiah knew seasons of doubt, anger and despair. How many hearts were crying, "Hurry up! Right now!" to an event that marked the culmination of God's presence on earth?

 

Yet who would knowingly elect a premature birth, with all its accompanying perils? Who would harvest their unripe peaches in May, in lieu of waiting for a sweet, juicy crop in August? If only I can hang on to a remembrance of the worth of waiting, as I tug at the skirts of my Mother.

 

But I am still so young, and too short to read the celestial calendar.