Every year as the season rolls around, I find myself traveling down memory lane, remembering Christmases past and the people that shared them.
It starts as I get decorations and ornaments out of their storage spaces. Remembering where I bought this ornament or who gave me that one. Remembering my mother as I get out the snowmen she made or as I hang the door decoration she quilted. Remembering travels and the ornaments purchased on those trips. Remembering.
Throughout the season, more memories flood my thinking.
Baking sugar cookies with my mother, many years ago when I was a child.
Christmas dinners with coconut cake and ambrosia and cranberry tip-tops (still my favorite!) and fruitcake cookies. I never have acquired a taste for fruit cake, but I loved my mother's fruit cake cookies!
Christmases in the living room at Grandmother Neil's house. Some children go over the river and through the woods to grandma's house. I went next door! Sometimes at Christmas all the aunts and uncles and cousins would be there as well, and we would pile into her tiny living room, which usually stayed closed off to keep the rest of the house warmer, and we would open our presents. Grandmother loved Christmas! She loved giving gifts. As did my mother. As do I.
Sending Christmas cards is a dying tradition. That quite possibly has a lot to do with the price of postage! Even so, I love receiving Christmas cards from friends and family I seldom see. I can still remember the Christmas card we sent to our friends and family on our first Christmas. It was red, with a part of the score of Handel's Messiah embossed in gold on the front of the card. And the greeting inside read "wishing you every blessing as we celebrate the birth of Christ." I don't know why I remember that, but I do.
I remember our very first Christmas tree, back in 1972, our first married Christmas. It was a beautiful tree, a scotch pine, perfectly shaped. It had hardly any ornaments on it, since we really couldn't afford any! And by the time Christmas rolled around, it had not a single gift left under it, since we had opened them all long before Christmas Day arrived!
In my childhood we always had cedar trees for Christmas, decorated with large colored lights and lots of icicles. I didn't like cedar trees then (and don't now) because of how scratchy they were and how the branches were too flimsy to hold the ornaments up. But I loved the smell, and still associate that with Christmas!
In the early days of our marriage we always spent Christmas Eve with Al's parents and Christmas Day with mine. That worked well when we only lived a couple of hours from my parents. As we began to move around the country, we still usually managed to make it back to SC at Christmastime, and so that Christmas Eve/Christmas Day tradition continued. Eventually, it became more difficult to travel back here every year, so we began trying an every-other-year visit, and that worked until we moved closer. As our sons grew up and married, the every-other-year tradition has continued, but in a little different way. We spend every-other-Christmas together, and Thanksgivings together in the alternate years, and so we alternate with the girls' families. So far that has worked out for us, and so that tradition continues.
In the years when we are spending Christmas alone, like this one, I remember the joy and laughter and fun that is part of a house full of family at Christmas time. And I look forward with great anticipation to next Christmas, when we will have that once again and will make more memories.
Christmas is a lot about traditions. About where we always put the tree, and what we always eat, and the kind of cookies we always bake. It's about what we always do together as a family, whether always going out to look at Christmas lights on a certain night, always going to Disney, always going to Christmas Eve service. Traditions vary from family to family. But they are part of the fabric of who we are and how we celebrate.
When we lived in Florida, it was our tradition to always attend the Candlelight Christmas program at Epcot. When we lived in Minnesota, we always participated in the luminaries display in our neighborhood.
One of our Christmas Eve traditions has always been a birthday cake for Baby Jesus, and reading the Christmas Story from Luke's Gospel. It's a family tradition that continues to this day.
Christmas is about memories. And it's about traditions. But most of all, Christmas is about Jesus.
Beginning in 2010, we have had several opportunities to visit Israel either right before or right after Christmas. As Christmas rolls around each year, I find myself remembering those trips and getting a little nostalgic. Remembering Bethlehem. The Church of the Nativity. The Shepherd's Fields. Singing carols there. Worshiping there.
Thinking about Israel makes me nostalgic. Christmas music has that effect as well. There are some songs that evoke strong memories of Christmases past. Of the people and places that I associate with them. Of the times I sang them or heard them sung.
O Holy Night is one of those kinds of songs. I love how it covers all the parts of the Christmas story. The night of Christ's birth. The angels singing. The star. The wise men. The manger. And the reason for His coming. He knows our need. To our weakness He is no stranger. In all our trials born to be our Friend. He taught us to love one another. His law is love and His gospel is peace. In His name all oppression shall cease.
Particularly in this Christmas season, this season of violence and discord and tension and murder and terrorism and persecution, we need that message more than ever.
"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end." (Isaiah 9:6-7a ESV)
Hear David Phelps sing O Holy Night here: https://youtu.be/AVpE8Dkr4HQ
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