Memories of Christmas's Past

It's just part of the season to become nostalgic, I guess.  This is my 10th Christmas without my husband and my 9th without a child in the house. This year, though I have my elderly mother living with me and so I feel like a "family" again.  Of course there was always Thelma and Doc, my cat and dog to share Christmas with me. However they both passed away last year.  A new crew has been added though - Tabbie, my shelter kitty and Mandy, my silky terrier. You can see their smiling faces on the side bar.

I thought I'd write briefly about a few Christmas memories - things that stick out in my mind.

There was the Christmas when I was a child. I don't remember my age but I was old enough to write a letter to Santa  telling him what I wanted. I left it in the living room, I guess figuring that he made pre-Christmas visits to check on such things.  In the morning, in place of the my letter was a hand written note from the big guy with a twig of evergreen attached to it.  I was absolutely thrilled that Santa left me a note AND  a memento just from him.  Of course, I know now that my mother wrote the note and the twig was from our Christmas tree but then it was magical!

As I watch the weather forecast for Christmas this year here in Florida and see temps of 70's to low 80's, I am reminded of how you just never know what the weather will be for Christmas.  We've had snow flakes in the air 2 days before Christmas but never a white one. The closest we came to it was one Christmas morning when it turned freezing. It had been raining during the night and the morning greeted us with a winter wonderland of icicles hanging from trees and bushes. It was truly beautiful! The down side was that our water pump would tend to freeze with ice when it became very cold. Of course, we awoke to no water.  But we opened our gifts and enjoyed the morning and then Alan went out with the hair dryer to defrost the element that was caked with ice and we were okay. The kids took a walk later and saw the beautiful trees glistening. The next day, the ice was gone.

My third memory was a plan I devised that backfired.  Since I wrap gifts as I get them and put them under the tree, my two older kids (then in grade school) loved to pick them up, shake them and especially keep a running account of who had more. In the end, they had the same amount but in the meantime, oh dear.  One Christmas I came up with the idea of putting numbers instead of names on the gifts. On a master list, was the number with corresponding child. I was feeling very smug as Jim and Jill sat puzzled over this new system.  It would have worked without a hitch except I misplaced the master list.  Some gifts were easy for me to distinguish their owner but others not so much.  The kids thought this was hilarious though and took it in stride - especially when Jim was given a box I thought was his GI Joe and it was really a Barbie. They just traded and everything was fine.  I never did that again!

I wish you all wonderful Christmas memories this year. Each moment is a treasure to keep in our hearts and to share.

May the One whose birth we celebrate bring you joy and peace this Christmas season.