Christmas Memories

Dear friends,

Since tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent this year, I thought I would start gleaning my archives for holiday goodies. 

Here's a little one!

CHRISTMAS MEMORIES
by Virginia Knowles

Taking a trip through old photo albums evokes childhood Christmas memories for me. One year, when we lived in the Midwest, we traveled to Grandma and Grandpa Hess’ Pennsylvania homestead. We all had the chicken pox, but we had so much fun playing with our many cousins in the teepee that the grownups had constructed in the living room. In the guest room with pull-down Murphy beds, Grandma always kept a drawer full of toys for our visits. I can just smell the wood furnace, taste the fresh peas from Grandpa’s garden that we would shell on the porch, hear the cuckoo clock, and feel the leaves crackling under my feet as I tromped through the woods out to the smooth boulder where I received the gift of the Savior in 1976.

Christmas 1968 holds the memory of the little red wagon Mom and Dad gave me. I must have been in the “pretty princess” stage of childhood, because I instantly rejected it as being “for a boy.” My Mom, perennial fount of wisdom, merely smiled and responded that she would be glad to have my red wagon. She piled her own Christmas presents into it, climbed aboard in her short plaid skirt, and scooted into the kitchen. Oh, how that kindled my desire to have it back! And of course she gave it to me.

Another fond memory is of the year my Grandpa Quarrier gave Dancerina Dolls to my sister Barb and me.  You would push down on her tiara and she would spin around on her pointed toe.

Whatever fond Christmas memories you cherish, this year I ask God to bless you with close relationships, a heart of service, and the thrill of discovering anew, with a child’s heart, the Reason for the Season.

If you would like to see some ideas for celebrating the birth of Christ with your family over a period of four weeks, click here: Family Advent Night Ideas.