“A child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:5

On the eve of my forty-(mumble) birthday, I decided to treat myself to a trip to San Francisco with my good friend Lisa. My old-fashioned paper driver’s license was about to expire, and knowing current flight regulations required photographic documents, I decided to upgrade to the next plateau of identification: the digitalized photo license. 

“This should be easy,” I surmised. “I know my name, and all I have to do is step up to the Division of Motor Vehicles counter to get my picture taken.”

In olden days, one’s license renewal would have been rubber-stamped with only a crayoned drawing and a note from one’s third-grade teacher to verify identity, but in this Homeland Security-conscious time, applicants needed multiple forms of identification, an affidavit and climate-controlled genetic material to prove citizenship and license-worthiness.

Not a problem. I’ve owned and operated the same name my entire life: Christina. No one in my extended Italian/Polish ancestry shares this appellation, and no angel (Gabriel or otherwise) visited my parents to influence their choice.

A simple look at the calendar inspired my Roman Catholic mother-to-be to dub her eldest child. Since I was born the day before Christmas, my name was a logical selection made en route to the hospital. (Thank goodness I was not born around Groundhog Day or she might have chosen….wait for it….Punxsutawney).

Mom favored one version of the name over the other; “It’s Christina, not Christine,” she frequently admonished friends and strangers alike, and I had taken to doing the same over the years.

So, I thought, the acquisition of my photo license should be a breeze. Following the one-from-column-A, two-from-column-B guidelines in the DMV brochure, I amassed an impressive portfolio of “Christina” paperwork, a lock of hair, eye of newt and a DNA-laden extracted baby tooth to speed my passage towards the license. Oh, wait, my birth certificate… Quickly stopping at the bank’s safety deposit box, I grabbed it without closely examining the yellowed document, then drove to the state agency. 

“Welcome to the Division of Motor Vehicles; we are here to serve you,” promised the multi-lingual hanging signs bearing smiling faces.

Serpentine-roped aisles guided visitors to the appropriate workers (whose faces, truthfully, did not look quite as joyful as those on the hanging signs). As I shuffled through the line, I finally examined my ancient birth certificate for the first time in decades.

My name was carefully typewritten as “Christine” with the final “E” overwritten by pencil to an “A”.

What?!, Christine?!?! Why didn’t my mother correct the birth certificate legally rather than just verbally (and painfully) stress that final “A” my entire life??

Then I remembered the oft-told bit of family lore: my mother’s urgent labor with me began in the midst of a heavy Christmas Eve morning snowstorm. Huge drifts prevented my father from finding a cleared passage into the city hospital despite numerous times circling the block; finally heeding my mother’s increasingly urgent cries, Dad haphazardly stopped the car near the front entrance and struggled to carry Mom over the white mountain of flakes piled high against the curb.

Unable to alert hospital personnel inside, Dad looked around for a Good Samaritan to assist him, and God sent him three individuals who foretold the Creator’s humorous touch in my life.  No, not the Magi, but a more fitting trio: garbage collectors. The weekly sanitation pick-up was underway and the compassionate public servants stopped the truck to help Mom over the drift and to the hospital door just in time, for I was born a scant 15 minutes later.

(This ignoble birth did not rival the Son of God’s resting place in the manger crib, but served as a humbling reminder from my mother any time she felt I was a bit too self-important: “Remember, Christina, you owe your life and not being born in a snowdrift to garbage men!”)

The inaccurately-typed birth certificate that arrived in the mail a few days later most likely was overlooked, then easily amended with a penciled “A”. My practical mother probably thought, “Why make an unnecessary trip through the snow to the town registrar?”

Hopefully her decision from more than four decades past wouldn’t slow my passage towards a photographic license.  Eight typewritten letters and one penciled letter…  it’s still me, and I have a fistful of other paperwork… shouldn’t be a problem…

“Next in line!” a voice commanded to snap me out of my reverie. Ms. Jones, the scowling clerk who beckoned me, closely resembled an ill-tempered, out-of-costume Margaret Mitchell from “The Wizard of Oz” movie. With ominous music running through my head, and the sudden mental image of a sweet little kidnapped dog in a bicycle basket, I began to sweat.

“Good morning,” I effused, but my greeting was ignored as Central Jersey’s answer to the Wicked Witch of the West spilled the contents of my folder across her workspace and took out her magnifying glass to examine them. Her crooked finger poked through the utility and credit card bills, then slowed when it reached my birth certificate. She tapped the defenseless little penciled “A”, looked up from the document, and barked:

“This birth certificate is ALTERED!” as lightning flew from her eyes to nearly scorch the counter before me. (Was that a cackling winged monkey on her shoulder??)

Other customers gasped in horror and drew back in fear, while the uniformed rent-a-cops at door reflexively patted their holstered firearms and awaited further instructions. Gleefully, Ms. Mitchell (oops, I mean Ms. Jones) told me I must drive to the town of my birth for another, unaltered birth certificate; if this, too, read “Christine”, I must apply for a legal name change at the county courthouse, which would take about six weeks and cost $400.00.

I was devastated. Not only would my mother’s long-ago pencil scrawl possibly cost me hundreds of dollars, weeks of aggravation and a missed flight to San Francisco, I was not actually who I grew up believing I was! I immediately speed-dialed Lisa and cried, “I just lost a whole syllable, and it’s going to cost me $400.00 to get it back!”

It may seem inconsequential to you, since the discrepancy was just a final vowel, but this name, this “Christina-not-Christine”-ness, went to the core of my identity as a woman and a Christian. Years before, I had done some Internet research into the etymology of my name; I love surfing the web, for unlike traditional surfing, you don’t have to balance on a fiberglass board or worry about getting your feet wet.

The name Christina is derived from the Latin feminine form of “Christian”; my heavenly namesake, St. Christina, was the daughter of a rich and powerful magistrate who underwent torture and trials to remain faithful to the Lord. Her relics are located at Palermo in Sicily, the birthplace of my maternal grandmother.

Another famous Christina, born in December like me, was a 17th-century Swedish queen and patron of the arts who gave up her crown in order to become a Roman Catholic. Looks like my mother’s extemporaneous choice for my name was providential after all.

The sacrifices by these distinguished women and a wallet filled with “Christina” paraphernalia were not my primary motivations to keep my intended birth name. Three more important documents were: my baptismal certificate, which marked the time my parents and sponsors first declared my name publicly as a servant of the Lord; my First Communion certificate, which marked the first time I consumed the Body of Christ; and my Confirmation certificate, issued in the very church at which I now cantor weekly. All three of these yellowed-but-precious certificates bear the name “Christina”.

This dossier of faith was reason enough to take whatever steps and pay whatever price necessary to remain Christina; I took a deep breath and decided to face the challenge head-on.

Luckily, the town of my birth was only a short drive away, and there was no snowstorm to impede my progress this time around. I found a pleasant young woman behind the registrar’s desk, and smiled widely, kicking the charm into high gear. Employing my God-given talent of schmoozing and befuddling an issue, I complimented the employee on her children’s class photos, her shoes, and the weather until she found the official computerized record of my birth.

I saw that it, too, read “Christine”, so I explained my dilemma while employing my secret talent: the ability to scramble a listener’s brainwaves by speaking semi-logically and for extended periods of time without stopping to breathe (due to a hidden gill respiratory system).

The smiling, shell-shocked young woman heard about 2/3 of what I babbled and replied, “Oh, don’t worry, we can change your name right now,” as she typed out a “Christina” birth certificate just to get rid of me.  I smiled in relief but internally flinched as I drew out my credit card for the hefty payment; still reeling from my onslaught of words, the clerk took pity on me and charged me only the cost of the computer copy: $5.00.

I grabbed the document, gratefully handed her a legal-tender portrait of our 16th  president and scooted out the door before she changed her mind.

I was “me” again!  “Christina” was back, for better or worse! Relieved, I drove back to the DMV and lurked in the shadows until the Wicked Witch was on her lunch break.

God took pity on me, and I randomly drew Ms. Smith (a.k.a. “Ms. I Have Not Yet Lost All My Humanity”) as my document examiner. She quickly verified my once-and-future identity and led me to the blue-draped wall for my photograph.  My laminated driver’s license picture shows the emotionally drawn, yet smug, look of a woman once again in touch with her legal and Christian identities.  I know who I am, a properly dubbed Child of God, and I have the documents to prove it.

Have a happy, holy, blessed, joyful Christmas, whatever your name may be!