Like most people, I love Christmas. I love the lights, the decorations, the music…the
general feeling of goodwill that just naturally seems to permeate the
surroundings. There is also a general
sense of nostalgia that happens. I don’t
know if it is because it’s so close to the end of the year, or because people
are reminded of their childhoods, or what they wish their childhoods were like,
but people love to look back.
When decorating, most people look at ornaments and remember
where they were when they got it, or who gave it to them. Anything from pretty store-bought ones that
mark a special occasion, or the sweet, funny-looking hand-made ones from
children, people remember.
I remember…I remember…
Like others, I have some favorite Christmas memories:
One year, right before Christmas, a popular store was
closing and was having a close-out sale.
My husband, father-in-law and I decided to check it out. At one point my FIL found a beautiful set of
owl prints: my husband loves owls. He
took me aside, gave me the money, told me to buy it and hide it in the
car. I rushed to the task and hurried
back. A little while later my husband
found a deep fryer. My FIL had wanted a
new one. So, my husband took me aside…you
can guess the rest. There I was, quite
literally sitting on TWO Christmas surprises!
I don’t know what was better: their expressions when they both opened
the loved gifts, or their expressions when it was discovered when they were
purchased!
Going back, when I was in my early teens, I had noticed a
rather large box with my name on it. I
wondered and wondered what it could be.
I thought it might be a TV…MY VERY OWN TV! I took a tape measure and measured the box,
then measured the smaller TV in my parents’ room. Nope: the box was too small. OK, so it wasn’t a TV…what could it be? One day my brother called me. He knew about the box, and asked that I not
open it until he was there to see me open it.
That REALLY piqued my curiosity!
Finally, Christmas morning came.
My brother arrived. I opened the
box…and it was…A TV!!! A small, “wood”
framed, black & white TV. I loved
it.
I worked in retail for a few years. One year I had gotten a kit to make a
nativity scene out of plastic canvas with needlepoint. I would take the kit to work every day and
work on it during breaks. It quickly
became a spectator sport, with people trying to take their breaks at the same
time so they could see the progress. I
did get to finish it right before Christmas, so I put it on display in the
break room that year, and the Christmas after that. (Sadly, the year after that there were a lot
of newer people who thought it was funnier to take parts of it and hide it, so
I stopped after that.)
The first time I was ever able to take part in a church
Christmas pageant was unforgettable. I
had always wanted to be part of one, but never had the opportunity. Finally, the opportunity came. I played an angel. My older daughter, who had just turned 2, was
also an angel, along with another woman who had a 2-year-old son. The funny thing was, I was 40, and the other
woman and I were both pregnant!
Side note: the next year we got to do the pageant as a family: my husband & I got to be Mary & Joseph, our new baby daughter was Baby Jesus...and our older daughter was a lamb.
And, to wrap up, a few memory bits:
The Christmas when I was maybe 5, when I got a gorgeous
rocking chair and a life-sized rag doll.
The Christmas I got Barbie’s Country Camper: I kept the box
to put my dirty clothes in, and called it my Barbie’s Country Hamper.
The Christmas eve of 2004, when I sang “It Was a Starry Night”
in a duet with one of my favorite people, while 7 months pregnant with our
second daughter.
The Christmas I received almost everything Kliban Cat, including
sheets, a towel, a t-shirt, and a diary.
The Christmas when I first FELT like a parent; when our
oldest just turned 2 and really “got it” for the first time.
Merry Christmas, everybody.
Enjoy celebrating our Savior’s birth, and creating new memories.
