Christmas Memories

It is Christmas Eve…and so tomorrow is Christmas Day. And I am ensconced in my purple bedroom in Indiana, surrounded by over a thousand books, Beauty and the Beast pictures, and a world white with snow – and more on the way!!! Just what Christmas should be…only different.

For my closet isn’t full of clothes. It’s my suitcase that is. Not all my books are on my shelves here, but there are a hundred more back in Texas. My desk is empty of stacks – those are back in Texas, too. And I have three large Tupperware containers stacked in my bedroom. In those belong my Christmas decorations, which will come down before I leave next week.

Christmas is a time full of memories. This began on the very Christmas, the day Christ was born, angels came from heaven to give Him glory, and shepherds left their sheep to worship Him in a humble stable. Mary “kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). And I’m sure she never forgot them as long as she lived.

When I was a little girl, we did all kinds of things at Christmas. My sister Katey and I marked up the Sears catalog with initials so large you couldn’t see the pictures. We made long lists to hand to Santa. We decorated Christmas cookies, enjoyed the new (usually matching) dresses Mom made for us, and we stayed up as long as we could on Christmas Eve in hopes to hear the reindeer on the roof. Christmas was spent with family: grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Sometimes this meant an all-night drive to Texas. Other times it meant an afternoon at Grandma Ogilvie’s. Each place held different traditions, distinct and special. Grandma Ogilvie would play the piano, and we got to hand out the gifts, and we’d run down to the basement to play when the house grew too warm. In Texas, we camped out on the living room floor, and Grandma had funny Polish/German traditions like pickled herring, and I had to be very careful about the cookies I selected from the cookie tier: Sandies and Mexican Wedding Cake cookies look very similar and the latter are DISGUSTING!

These traditions were always special, but they changed when we headed to New England. We didn’t go back to Tennessee for four years. And Texas? We didn’t make it back for eight years and only because we moved there. By then, I wasn’t a little girl with cute dresses and hair ribbons anymore. I was a teenager. A lot of Christmas traditions changed as I did. No more reindeer on the roof, the Sears catalog had shrunk in half, and younger cousins handed out the gifts. But my family made traditions of their own: a one day shopping venture we all piled into the van for, putting up our tree the day Navy plays Army, waking up at dawn Christmas day, having different people over who needed a family to Christmas with. All of them as special as the ones they replaced.

And now I’m not an awkward teenager shifting between childhood and the long years of adulthood. Tomorrow will be my 31^st Christmas. I’m a full-fledged adult (even when I don’t feel like it) with a job, a place to live, bills to pay, and a home I fly to when the holidays come around. And with those changes come more changes in tradition. I hung my ornaments on the tree yesterday, remembering each one as a special gift from someone I love. I had to do my Christmas shopping alone and in spurts as I found the time. Does Sears even put out a catalog? And there is no new Christmas dress. Yet some traditions never change:

There are puzzles laid out to be done. Today Abby, Mom and I will cook sausage balls, the breakfast casserole, and Jesus’ birthday cake (while the others are at work). Tonight we will have the traditional Christmas Eve meal passed down from the Sturm family: cold cuts, cheeses, pickles, crackers – enough “snack” foods to feed an army. And we’ll open one gift. Tomorrow we will awake with the crack of dawn (and snow!), our stockings will be full of good things, the tree will be lit, and gifts will be handed out and unwrapped until you can’t see the gifts through the mounds of paper and boxes. We’ll eat a huge meal, play games, lay around, wear new clothes. But most of all, we’ll enjoy being together – a blessing from the One who was born to bring peace on earth, good will to men.