I’m a first generation immigrant. My parents came from Lithuania, right across the sea from Sweden.
We have a beautiful Christmas Eve tradition I think you’ll enjoy hearing about. It creates a very special moment.
Each person at the dinner table receives a large wafer of unleavened bread and we have communion.
You might have heard of “Holy Communion”, which is different. That’s when a Priest blesses the wafer and gives it special religious significance.
This Christmas Eve tradition of communion is not religious. If you look the word communion up in the dictionary, without the word “Holy” in front of it, it means:
The sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level.
You can see it’s something special.
And the way our Christmas Eve communion tradition works is this. You go around the table to each person, one at a time. You break off a piece of their unleavened bread and you tell them something deeply spiritual or personal that moves you about them, about your relationship with them, about your love for them. And then you tell them your wishes for them for the coming year. Then you eat the piece of bread that you have broken off from their unleavened wafer.
Then they break off a piece of your unleavened bread and tell you something deeply spiritual, personal or moving about their feelings for you, and their wishes for you for the coming year.
Then you embrace, hug and give each other a kiss.
It’s a deeply personal and moving exchange.
You go around and do this with each person at the table, as everyone else does also. Even the little ones are taken around.
By the time I’m done, I feel like I’ve had a full meal of something profoundly spiritual and emotionally nourishing.
This kind of an exchange is called communion.
It’s not the kind of exchange you have on a day-to-day level, unless your life happens to be extraordinary! It’s a special exchange that happens when you make a special time for it.
I’ve told friends and clients about this tradition before and some of them have adopted it in their own homes. They’ve written me about the beautiful effects and atmosphere it created, how it brought them even closer together as a family.
It’s truly a moment of love and appreciation.
Although this particular tradition is unique, I value moments of communion in my relationships whenever they happen. These moments of exchanging deeply felt ideas and feelings can be found even at work. I find them often during workshops and coaching sessions. They come from great trust and they create great trust. They give life meaning.
As we go to the holidays, and as you have a chance to leave the crazy world behind and retreat into the warmth of family and to the people you love, I wish you a magical season that gives you a beautiful abundance to fill your heart with happiness.
Wishing you a beautiful season filled with much communion and love.
Be the cause!