Top Ten Christmas Memories

As Sam is now old enough to learn about the meaning of Christmas, this Christmas season has been more worshipful and enjoyable than most Christmases in the recent past. It has got me (Karen) thinking of special Christmas memories (most of those memories are from my early childhood; when I was ten years old, our family made a big move from our longtime farm to Los Angeles, and soon after, my mom began a nine-year losing battle against cancer, so the Christmases that followed were sometimes tough). I am excited to begin new, meaningful traditions that will provide our children with their own Christ-centered Christmas memories. Here are my Top Ten Christmas Memories (in no particular order, except maybe the order in which I remembered them). I'd love to hear comments from those (Dad, Leslie?) whose memories are better than mine:

1. One year, performing "Come On Ring Those Bells" with my sister, Leslie, for our parents while standing on our hearth (for some reason, I still remember that song exactly, though I haven't heard that song since that one occasion).

2. Listening to the Carpenters' Christmas album (yes, I have my own copy now and it is well-used every year).

3. Each year, attending the Christmas play at my grandparents' church and enjoying the brown paper sacks of goodies (apple, orange, chocolates, and candy canes) we received afterward.

4. The year we got our first family computer, an IBM PC Jr. Can we say techno-city!?!

5. Going Christmas shopping as a family for each other. We'd split up: someone with Mom, someone with Dad. Then we'd meet up, switch around, and set out again. One year, I got lost, and mall security had to call for my parents over the loudspeaker. That part does not count as a fond Christmas memory.

6. After the shopping trip, having family present-wrapping parties. Different family members had to be in different rooms at different times, depending on who was wrapping for whom.

7. Singing "Away in a Manger" for the church service with a couple of other young girls; our dear pastor's wife, Rosie Cahill, always arranged for a few of us to perform that song.

8. Going to the Christmas tree farm to pick out and cut down our own Christmas tree. One year, we got a gigantic-tall tree, and my dad even had them flock it. That tree must have cost a fortune!

9. Each year, putting that gosh-ugly angel (the one my parents had had as long as they had been married) on top of the tree. We always fought over who got to do it! That angel was retired to my mother's hope chest, and I received it after she passed away. I just can't bring myself to actually put that GOSH-UGLY thing on a tree. It has yellow spikey hair!

10. One year, I remember feeling cozy and warm near the hearth while the weather outside was very cold. I had a wonderful feeling of the Christmas school break just beginning, with two weeks of vacation ahead. We had that beautiful giant flocked tree, Carpenters' Christmas music playing, and--best of all--Mom nearby in the kitchen. I was amusing myself by taking Mom's basswood ornaments (ornaments she had bought and painted herself many years before I was born) off the tree and tracing them on paper to make my own copies. I still have a few of those ornaments. They, too, were retired to the hope chest and later divided up among the siblings. I'm not sure what it is that makes this memory so special; I think it is just a general feeling of warmth, security, and Christmas anticipation.

Next post: our new Christmas traditions.