A Time for Christmas

Courtney Vincent races through the Christmas season with shopping bags, a long list, and very little time for anyone else. At Whit’s End, her friend Jenny Roberts asks for help with a Christmas program at the school for the blind. Jenny needs one more person and believes Courtney would be perfect, but Courtney refuses because she still has presents to buy. Most of the packages she is already carrying are gifts she has bought for herself.

After Jenny leaves disappointed, Whit asks how Courtney is celebrating Christ’s birth or serving others. Courtney mentions Christmas movies, songs, shopping, and wrapping, but she has not joined any of the community or church projects he names. Whit wonders whether she has confused the decorations and entertainment of the season with its real spirit. He invites her into the Imagination Station for a journey through Christmas celebrations of the past.

Their first stop is a noble household in the Middle Ages. A grand feast fills the dining hall, and musicians perform a play about Saint George defeating a dragon. Whit explains that the tale represents good triumphing over evil and that such plays, feasts, worship, hunts, and tournaments have become part of the Christmas celebration. Courtney is fascinated by the excitement and wants to stay for the jousting, but Whit reminds her that she was in a hurry to return to her shopping. Suddenly, a few more minutes do not seem so important to her.

The next scene is dark. Whit explains that Christmas festivities eventually grew so wild that many people forgot what they were celebrating. Riots and wrongdoing turned the season into a mockery, and church leaders responded by trying to abolish it. In London in 1657, Courtney watches a small group hold a forbidden Christmas prayer service. An officer accuses them of superstition and treason and orders the worshipers to disperse. They continue reading Scripture, and soldiers seize them.

Although Courtney and Whit are supposed to be invisible and unheard, a flaw in the program briefly allows Courtney’s protest to reach the officer. Her unseen voice frightens the soldiers, but it cannot save the worshipers, who may now face fines or imprisonment. Courtney is troubled that peaceful people suffer because others had abused the celebration. Whit explains that Christmas has been outlawed for everyone, making December 25 an ordinary day. Courtney now wants to remain on the journey instead of hurrying back to the stores.

Whit takes her to a poor Victorian orphanage. He explains that Christmas has survived changing governments and has again become a time of fellowship, generosity, and joy among rich and poor alike. Stories such as Charles Dickens’s *A Christmas Carol* have reminded people to look beyond poverty and hardship, but that vision requires a changed heart.

The children in the orphanage wear rags and have no breakfast. Mistress Bailey tries to make Christmas joyful by canceling chores and lessons, arranging worship, and planning simple fun. When one child bitterly questions God’s care for orphans, another remembers that life in the mines, factories, or streets would be even worse and that Mistress Bailey has given them a home. They go to the chapel to pray in faith for food.

Courtney desperately wants to feed them. Whit reminds her of her earlier claim that she has no time to help, then explains that the Imagination Station cannot change the past. Once they return to Whit’s End, Courtney feels miserable that those children’s needs are long gone and she can do nothing for them. Whit points out that children in her own time still need care. The Christmas spirit can survive persecution, poverty, and tragedy, he tells her, but not a heart unwilling to change.

Courtney decides she no longer feels like shopping and tries to leave the machine. Instead of stepping into Whit’s End, she finds herself invisibly observing Jenny at home with her mother. Jenny is considering canceling the school program because everyone she asked has been too busy to help. What hurts most is Courtney’s refusal. Jenny had thought her best friend would care about making the students happy, but now she wonders why she should care when no one else does.

Courtney calls out that she is sorry and will help, but Jenny cannot hear her. Courtney pleads with Whit to make her visible. A moment later she is back at Whit’s End, where Jenny has returned for her purse. Courtney immediately admits that she has been selfish and asks to join the Christmas program after all. Jenny gladly accepts and is puzzled about Courtney’s unfinished shopping. Courtney teasingly tells Jenny that she does not understand the Christmas spirit, then begins explaining everything she has learned as the friends walk home together.