“I’ll be home for Christmas…”

This line from the ever-famous Christmas jingle was running through mine and my family’s mind this Christmas season. Not only was I flying home from New Zealand to spend a few short weeks at home, but my brother was driving in from Indiana and my other brother and his wife would be there. On top of that, my parents opened their home to our two friends, Roosevelt and Holding, who are students in Kentucky but are from Haiti. Two days after I arrived, the boys’ father, Pierre, arrived in Chicago from Haiti on his first trip to the United States.

It was the most exciting Christmas the McAlvey family has experienced to date.

The day after Christmas, it all came to an abrupt end. My brother drove back to Indiana and my best friend and all three Haitians were getting ready to drive back to Kentucky.

And here I am, readying myself to head back to Auckland in less than a week.

Last night, I enjoyed one of the best Christmas presents ever. My parents and I went to a Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert. I was seven rows from the front and was blessed to have several bald men sitting around me. Watching the lights bounce off their shiny skulls was pretty entertaining J.

Ok…that wasn’t the best part.                                 

The opening song brought me to tears. The lighting, the narrating, the music—it was all so magical. The musicians brought the magic of Christmas—the joy of Christ’s birth—to life. It wasn’t long before the vents above opened up and blessed me with my first snowfall of the season. No, it wasn’t REAL snow; it was much better. It wasn’t cold and it disappeared as soon as it made contact with anything. It was beautiful either way.

The entire three hours that I sat in the chair listening in amazement as these people brought the haunting memory to life, I couldn’t stop thinking of how blessed in talent they were—how God gave some people an image and an ear for such a magical show and how He gave them the resources and talent and time to bring it to life. I also kept wondering if they knew how blessed they were.

Then it started me thinking on the general role of music in the Bible and in the mind. Music has been used throughout time—David is known (not only for) his ability to use music to soothe King Saul. Music is also associated with prophecy.

What music does for a person is remarkable. In the movies, music is used to foreshadow, to let the viewers know when the mood is changing. People listen to and play music as a way to relieve stress. They use it to relay messages to girlfriends/boyfriends, parents, friends. We use it to convey patriotism and to worship our God.

So why does music play such a role in our lives? This is something I’ve thought about and “studied” for a while and the first thing (and not the only thing) I’ve come up with is that music is so important to our lives because it’s able to relay a message—to say things in notes and rhythm and melody that we aren’t able to using words. What we’re able to say through music goes deeper then words; it gets to the heart.

That’s why the Trans-Siberian Orchestra struck such a chord with me. Those musicians are able to tell the magical story of Christmas through music and lights and pyrotechnics better then any story or book I’ve ever read or been told. Christ’s birth became almost tangible through the strumming of guitars and the beat of the drums. The joy and excitement I felt about the passing Christmas season—about my wonderful Savior’s birth—was one I’d never felt before, one that I’ll never forget.