2024 Country Christmas | Editorial: Small Things 

This Christmas season, I have been purposefully trying to focus on what is small. Small batch makers. A little smile at each passing stranger. Small businesses. Communities. A small baby lying in the hay in a manger.  

I need hardly express the exhaustion of a long election year to any of our readers. The news cycle can be tiring, and there are big, nationwide problems that certainly warrant our concern. And yet, many of the news stories that come across our screens consist of issues we can do nothing about, save for a vote every year or so.  

These big things are often out of our control. And I think that is why the Christmas season – and the Christmas story – stands in such contrast to our world. Each year, we get to remember that God himself chose to be born of a woman, entering this world in man’s most vulnerable form – a baby.  

He was placed inside a manger – an eating place, no less – in a shelter for animals. There were no royal attendants or silk linens for the King of Kings. But those of us who have spent any number of hours with our animals in their stalls perhaps find this detail relatable and even more human. Old barns hold a certain reverence within their walls, and most of us are more at home among our horses and cattle and sheep than anywhere else.   

This year, I am expecting my own baby just a few days before Christmas, so I’ve gotten to journey with Mary, as it were (though I am eternally grateful that I have a more comfortable mode of transportation than a donkey). The simple beginnings of Jesus Christ are poignant.  

I am reminded of a G.K. Chesterton quote. “Humility is the mother of giants. One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.” In this world of big business, big government, and any number of nouns that “big” can be placed front of, perhaps it is humility and littleness that are the ultimate rebellion.  

Keeping in mind that Jesus was raised by a quiet and humble craftsman, I intend to shop small, too. My Christmas list for family and friends include a handmade bit from a neighbor, stamped leatherwork, turquoise jewelry made at a friend’s bench, and paintings from a gifted artist. I know where my gifts were made, and I know how much my small orders mean to their families and small businesses.  

There are numerous opportunities to shop small within the pages of this magazine, too. I encourage you to do so. 

It is worth remembering this Christmas season that the world was not conquered by the strongest superhero, nor a Greek god with a thunderbolt, but a tiny child in the straw, who had nothing to give but his littleness.  

Christmas blessings to all of our readers,  

Kaycee Monnens Cortner