![\"The](\"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/gp_decjan2022_embed.jpg\")
\n January 2022 <\/em>Guideposts<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
I imagined all the heads that would turn as I walked down the halls of my Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, high school in my sleek new Vanderbilts. I wasn\u2019t a mean girl or anything. In fact, I was a pretty good kid. But something about those jeans got ahold of my imagination and wouldn\u2019t let go. I had to have them!<\/p>\n
Broken Arrow was a relatively small town back then, not far from Tulsa, the big city as far as we were concerned. I planned to be a singer, dancer and actor, a combination of Julie Andrews and Carol Burnett<\/a>. I\u2019d sung solos in church. Even sang the song \u201cFour Feet Eleven\u201d at a national church convention. The lyrics were meant for me: \u201cI\u2019m only four feet eleven, but I\u2019m going to heav\u00aden\u2026.\u201d My exact height (still is).<\/p>\n My parents wanted to make my old\u00ader brother, Mark, and me happy, but they also knew what was best for us. Like when Mark had his heart set on a set of big tires for his truck one Christ\u00admas\u2026and what did he get? Contacts. For his eyes. What a disappointment. Ah, contacts. <\/em>It became a kind of joke between the two of us when some\u00adthing didn\u2019t go our way.<\/p>\n That I ended up being raised by Mom and Dad was an extraordinary gift in itself, a blessing I thank God for every day of my life. I was adopted as an infant<\/a>. My birth mom, who wasn\u2019t prepared to raise a child, did the brav\u00adest and most generous thing by giving me up.<\/p>\n Mom happened to be in the same hospital, having just had a hys\u00adterectomy, with no hope of conceiving the daughter she and Dad wanted so badly. That she managed to connect with my birth mother, whose origi\u00adnal plans of adoption had just fallen through, seemed like God\u2019s will<\/a>.<\/p>\n People sometimes say, \u201cYou must feel bad because you were adopted.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d I shoot back. I got the exact set of parents I was sup\u00adposed to have.<\/p>\n Mom and Dad worked hard to give Mark and me all the wonderful things we had and the opportunity to do all the things we loved. I don\u2019t think I could ever thank them enough. Every Christmas, there were the stockings Mom filled\u2014and still does\u2014with little necessities: a cool new tooth\u00adbrush, hair ties, that silly razor I want\u00aded, some hand sanitizer (these days). Our stockings were hand-knit<\/a> with our names on top and jingle bells.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why from the time I was a little girl I always wanted to give Mom the best gift at Christmas<\/a>. Something perfect that would make her happy.<\/p>\n In the summers, I\u2019d go out west to Hinton\u2014even smaller than Broken Arrow\u2014and stay with our grandpar\u00adents for a couple weeks. They were real fixtures in town. Grandpa ran the bar\u00adber shop, and Grandma ran the beauty salon<\/a>, The Town Beauty Parlor. When I say ran<\/em>, I mean they did everything. <\/em>Grandma would cut, trim, dye, set the ladies\u2019 hair. It was one of those places with big old sinks and a noisy pop ma\u00adchine in the corner. If you made an ap\u00adpointment, you\u2019d best keep it. That\u2019s the way it was in Hinton.<\/p>\n Grandma gave me little jobs. \u201cYou think you can go in the back and sweep?\u201d she\u2019d say. Of course, I could. Or Grandpa would slip me some change to buy candy at the drugstore. Grandma always had some vintage jewelry<\/a> she sold at the front desk. One summer, I spotted a beautiful antique crystal brooch shaped like a peacock. Perfect for Mom. It grabbed hold of my imagination just the way those fancy jeans would later.<\/p>\n I took all the babysitting money I\u2019d squirreled away and whatever Grandma paid me for sweeping the floors and bought it. Bingo. I was set for Christmas, kind of forgetting that I didn\u2019t have any money left to buy something for Dad and Mark.<\/p>\n They understood. We all under\u00adstood. It made Mom happy, that one big gift.<\/p>\n Like those Gloria Vanderbilt jeans I was hankering after a few years later. Don\u2019t worry, I\u2019m getting to that part.<\/p>\n Our high school didn\u2019t have a big arts program back then, so the only way I could make my mark as a per\u00adformer was dancing on the pom-pom squad<\/a>. I was a Tigette, cheering on the Broken Arrow Tigers. Go, team! Our colors were black and gold. Maybe that\u2019s why I wanted those jeans so badly. So I would stand out.<\/p>\n As soon as we put away the Thanks\u00adgiving turkey<\/a> that year I was 16, we got out the Christmas decorations. We put carols on the stereo, made hot chocolate, set out the Advent calendar and the cr\u00e8che and started counting down the days. Would it ever be the twenty-fifth?<\/p>\n I listened to carols, singing along, and watched all the TV specials (I still watch \u2019em): Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, A Charlie Brown Christmas<\/a>. <\/em>(No remote then\u2014you had to get up and change the channels. Good exercise too.) Christmas Eve finally arrived. Dad read us the story from the Bible: \u201cAnd in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night\u2026.\u201d Jesus was coming, the light of the world.<\/p>\n After church on Christmas morning, we ate the breakfast you had to eat if you lived in Oklahoma: grits<\/a>, sausage, eggs and toast. We opened our stockings, then finally settled down to hand out the big presents from under the tree. My box looked <\/em>big, easily big enough for a pair of jeans, maybe two pairs. Could I be that lucky? I had butterflies in my stomach.<\/p>\n I untied the ribbon, carefully took off the paper (hearing in my head, even if Mom didn\u2019t say it aloud, \u201cSave the paper,\u201d so it could be reused next year). Lifted the lid off the box. Only to see\u2026what?<\/p>\n A Tigette letter jacket, black and gold with \u201cKristi\u201d (that\u2019s what I went by in those days!) stitched on the front and my graduation year on the sleeve.<\/p>\n Those butterflies in my stomach flew away real fast. Oh, I knew the jacket was a big deal: made to order and expensive. And we weren\u2019t a rich family. Mom later told me how the company had insisted that the size was too small even for a super petite 16-year-old; she must have it wrong. No, Mom insisted, she really is four foot eleven. (Still am\u2014did I mention that?)<\/p>\n I knew it was something I\u2019d need to have later in the year. Getting your letter jacket is a big high school moment, right up there with getting your class ring<\/a>. But for a Christmas present? When I was totally expecting those Gloria Vanderbilt jeans? Really?<\/p>\n \u201cWow, thanks so much,\u201d I said, try\u00ading to hide my disappointment. Ah, contacts, <\/em>the phrase flew through my head. I put on the jacket. A perfect fit. I knew that you should never refuse a gift. You had to receive it, to honor the givers, my dear parents who\u2019d given me so much. I felt guilty and grateful all at once.<\/p>\n I thought of that brooch that had made Mom so happy, and me so happy and excited to give it to her. This was not the gift I expected, the gift that I wanted, the fancy designer jeans I wanted everybody to see me in. Yet suddenly\u2026<\/p>\n Out of the corner of my eye, I saw our cr\u00e8che and God\u2019s son asleep in the manger<\/a>. He too had the perfect adop\u00adtive parents of sorts, whom God had entrusted him to, Mary and Joseph, standing over him. At once something happened inside me, disappointment becoming transformed and trans\u00adforming me in the process.<\/p>\n Jesus wasn\u2019t the Messiah\u2014the gift\u2014that many people expected. Not that king who would reign from a palace, the powerful figure Herod feared would lead mighty armies with his sword.<\/p>\n He was but an infant born to a mere carpenter and his teenage bride from the tiny town of Nazareth, a poor speck on the map in Galilee. A humble couple who traveled by don\u00adkey to Bethlehem, lodging in a stable because there was no room for people like them at the inn\u2014I could hear Dad read the words\u2014wrapping their baby in swaddling clothes and laying him in a manger<\/a>. A manger, where animals ate, for his earthly throne. Nothing could have been more unexpected.<\/p>\n And who was it who first came to worship him? Shepherds<\/a>, the lowliest in that world\u2019s pecking order, bring\u00ading their sheep, guided by angels who appeared to them in the heavens. The light of the universe did come, a child who would indeed grow up to change the world but through love and com\u00adpassion and understanding and a sacrificial death that defied all expec\u00adtations.<\/p>\n On that first Christmas, Jesus entered our world in so humble a way that no one could have imagined it. Yet he was the gift all mankind needed.<\/p>\n I grew up that Christmas when I was 16. I learned that what is given in love should be accepted with love<\/a>. How proud I was wearing that jacket on campus; how I treasured it over the years. After the career I\u2019ve had\u2014be\u00adyond my expectations\u2014I gave it to the Broken Arrow Performing Arts Center, which has honored it and me by dis\u00adplaying it in a glass cabinet for all to see, worn by the Tigette who went on to bigger stages and wider screens.<\/p>\n Ever since that Christmas, I\u2019ve tried to look at what seem like disappoint\u00adments differently. Sometimes you don\u2019t get what you want. Sometimes what you get is even better. A blessing, in fact. A disappointment can be the way you are shown the direction you are meant to go in, not necessarily the one you want. Sometimes disappoint\u00adments morph into miracles<\/a>.<\/p>\n Recently I had the pleasure of re\u00adcording my new album, Happiness Is\u2026 Christmas, <\/em>with songs that remind us of the greatest miracle. Some are play\u00adful, like one we put together to mark that 16-year-old\u2019s disappointment, \u201cSanta, I\u2019ve Got a Bone to Pick With You.\u201d Another tells of teenage Mary\u2019s journey, \u201cAlong the Little Road to Bethlehem,\u201d and a Hanukkah song by Stephen Schwartz (who wrote the music and lyrics for Wicked<\/em>) shows how the darkness can be vanquished: \u201cWe Are Lights.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou are the light of the world<\/a>,\u201d Je\u00adsus said. We are.<\/p>\n I like to be back in Broken Arrow\u2014like me, it\u2019s grown up a lot\u2014for Christmas to be with Mom and Dad, see the old cr\u00e8che<\/a> and the stockings Mom knit for us, but it\u2019s not always possible. Performances, recording gigs, TV shows, film schedules don\u2019t always allow it. In that case, Mom and Dad join me where I am. On the road, in New York, in Los Angeles. Wherever we can celebrate. That we\u2019re together is what\u2019s most important.<\/p>\n Without fail, Dad brings his Bible with him, and even if it\u2019s offstage, with a group of actors and crew mem\u00adbers gathered around on Christmas Eve<\/a>, he reads those ancient words: \u201cAnd in that region there were shep\u00adherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n The gift that changed the world.<\/p>\n \n Kristin Chenoweth\u2019s new album <\/span><\/i>Happiness Is\u2026Christmas is available wherever music is sold. <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/kristin_chenoweth_album_cover.jpg\")
<\/p>\n