Each Christmas, my family gathers around the fireplace in my parent’s home, and each person shares one tribulation and one jubilation of the year. We grieve together, we celebrate together. This year, staring at the deep orange embers, I find myself filled with hope. Hope for tiny hands extending in love. Hope for tiny voices reminding us of magic. Hope for tiny hearts changing the world. And hope for you… the parents who raise them. Not because you are perfect. But because in the messy, chaotic, muddiness of it all, you are turning houses into homes, breath into life, flesh into beating hearts.
And in those moments where everything is falling apart and you are crying over all of things you wanted to do for them and didn’t, all they hear is the heartbeat that goes “ILoveYou, ILoveYou, ILoveYou.”
And as I reflect on that, I think of a baby, born in a dirty stable, because there was no room for Him at the inn. I remember the hundreds, the thousands, the millions who will not have the Christmas that I will. Those with family far away, those with family broken or lost, those who have never known the Christmas that I know. I will remember those who are searching for magic, those who still believe, and those who have forgotten. And although I couldn’t possibly fit each one of those people into my home, I will let them fill every crevice of my heart. I will promise to do everything I can to make a difference in their lives.
A wise man once said that the best kind of theatre happens somewhere between the performer and the audience– an exchange back and forth, a give and take, where we end up as old friends invited into a living room to share and learn from one another. So, if you, dear reader, have found this post on a crisp Winter evening, promise me something: Give this Season. Give in a way that the stores don’t want us to. Give in a way that truly reminds you of what Christmas is about. Buy a stranger a bus ticket, let the mother with screaming toddlers have your parking spot. Offer to drive the gentleman with a walker home, and ask if he has someone to spend Christmas with. Give. Because you can. What a wonderful thing that is.
In 2018, 535 of you invited us into your homes. The deep impressions that you and your children have left on our hearts are impossible to count.
Aerhyn has been wowing audiences in musicals and children’s theatre around Vancouver and all across the country since 2004, as well as providing voices for video games. Most recently, he’s been a part of two touring Theatre for Young Audiences shows in Baking Time (Presentation House Theatre) and Raven Meets the Monkey King (Axis Theatre), as well as having recently returned from Regina, Saskatchewan as a part of the SaskExpress touring company. He has spent the better part of the last 10 years teaching hip hop and musical theatre to students between the ages of 5 to 22, and was the resident choreographer for the Eric Hamber Secondary musical production. Aerhyn also enjoys recording his Tune-Up Thursdays acapella covers, anything that involves food (cooking and consuming), cycling, and playing volleyball.