Caleb Mechem's Blog
A Christmas Story ... / Dec 20, 11:28 AM
We started planning for our neighborhood Christmas party over two weeks ago. One night we made dozens of invitations with construction paper, glue, markers and crayons for neighbors on our block, people from our church, people we work with, the nuns who live a couple blocks away and a few homeless people: nearly 50 people in all.
When it comes to snacks, we definitely decided to err on the side of leftovers. On the savory side, we had three different kinds of chips, pretzels, trail mix and popcorn balls. And the sweets! Sugar cookies in the shape of snowmen and Christmas trees, double chocolate cookies, miniature pumpkin pies, miniature peach pies, cranberry muffins, no-bake cookies and a three-layer chocolate chip cookie cake with chocolate fudge icing. Beverages? Five cases of soda, a case of cranberry apple juice, sweet tea and hot cocoa – with marshmallows, or without.
We were still finishing up the baking and cleaning the kitchen when we heard a knock on the door at 6:15, and the party wasn’t supposed to start until 6:30! It was a guy we know pretty well through Urban Promise named Tony, who has lived in North Camden all of his life and he brought along one of his friends, whom we didn’t know. Our party was underway, but we still had 15 minutes before people were really going to rush in!
Then 6:30 rolled around. Then 7, 7:30 and no new people showed up. Tony and his friend left, leaving us to sit in a room full of chairs, cookies and Christmas music. Then at around 8 o’clock, Tony’s brother showed up. He stayed for a couple hours and when he left, we put several dozen cookies in the freezer and went to bed.
[Before I go on, let me just say that I don’t consider our party a failure. Talking with the three fellows who did show up was a great time. We talked about our neighborhood and some of our different struggles and they told us stories – some hilarious, some sobering – about growing up in Camden. We also had a great time baking (and eating) all that food.]
To be honest, I’m not very surprised that people didn’t show up. I doubt that Christmas parties at houses are a very big part of the North Camden holiday season and, even if they are, we’re just five random people who showed up a couple months ago and everyone is still trying to figure us out.
Our party was a reminder that, even though we look different than most of our neighbors and live in North Camden for a different reason than they do, we’re still just people. When we pass our neighbors on the sidewalks and chat with them, they don’t see missionaries or do-gooders or saints; they just see new neighbors. New, strange faces in the neighborhood.
And that’s not much less than I want to be. I don’t want to be a missionary; I just want to be a good neighbor who cares about the neighborhood.
So I suppose we just need to keep smiling at folks.
To keep talking to them.
To keep praying with and for them.
And we have to invite them back for our next party.
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amazing story. on more than one occassion i have planned a big, impressive thing only to have very few show up. its frustrating! but i guess it isn’t the event that really matters, but the process of making it happen. now, 50 people know that at least one household in camden cares enough about them to invite them into their home.
By steve / Dec 20, 02:12 PM / #