Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmastime.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
What is the true meaning of Christmas?
Is it found in presents nestled under the tree?
Or perhaps it’s in the moments
that are waiting for me.
It was to be our first Christmas together as husband and wife. I had the house decorated and the outside porch covered in beauty. I was thrilled to be starting traditions in my own home with my husband until I walked into my parent’s house. At the time, they lived in the same city as Chuck and me.
My mother has a knack for decorating and a keen sense for detail. Walking inside her home was like walking into a Christmas postcard. They had an old CD playing that took me back to decorating the tree as a little girl. I started to cry as memories flooded back. I asked, “Will I ever have memories I cherish as much as my own?”
It seemed impossible that new memories could overlap old ones. How could I go back and relive decorating our family Christmas tree or listening to the snow crunch under my boots? What could be better than friends joining our yuletide feast? It seems like only yesterday, yet miles away from my reach.
I could feel the cold biting my legs as Dad would put two sleeping girls still in their nightgowns into the backseat of the car. The exhaust pipe clouded the night air as the vehicle warmed splendidly.
Mom had comfortable pallets in the back seat for us to sleep. When dad laid us down, mom covered us with a blanket and told us to go back to sleep. She made the inside of the car feel like our living room, burrowed by the wood stove.
The miles would go by, and dad would get faster as the roads got curvier, knowing the bends by heart. The sun would have set long before we arrived. I was thankful for houses lighting the way and Christmas trees twinkling from windows as we passed.
My grandpa and grandma’s place sits deep in the country hills of Tennessee. Their place would smell of the wood-burning stove drifting out from the chimney and their Christmas tree was full of years that dangled from the limbs. Anxious kids and presents would hover around the tree.
Leaving one set of Grands to see the other was always hard because we knew it would be six months before we saw them again, maybe even a year.
Grandaddy would be waiting in the driveway when we pulled up. He loved his grandchildren and couldn’t wait to spoil us for the time we were together. The colorful Christmas tree would light the living room with baby dolls and strollers surrounding its base. I could hear him early each morning sneaking into the kitchen to have his coffee. I couldn’t wait because I knew he would make mine too – coffee filled with sugar and milk was delightful.
Always with one last stop to make on our trip South complete, the Grands. Grandmother Shirley and Grandfather Ben are grandparents by heart. When my mother’s mom died at age six, Grandmother Shirley spent many years helping my Grandaddy raise and attend to the three children. The Grands lived in a beautiful home on the lake, settled in the heart of Mississippi. New rollerblades were waiting for us under the tree.
Perfect for Christmastime!
“Even now, on Christmas Eve, when the rest of the family has long since drifted in slumber toward another Christmas mourn, I lie down by the tree for just a little while, keeping vigil as in 1957. I think part of me is waiting, longing to hear the hushed noises of mom wrapping packages and dad attaching the legs to a dolly tea table.” – Ellen Carter Clark
Today, there is still fog behind my eyes from Christmases long ago, but a glow surrounds me as I string lights around the tree, just as my mother did year after year. The smell of fresh pine fills my senses, and familiar songs invade my thoughts. The girls play, and daddy sets the tree. Hanging ornaments is a familiar affair of arts and crafts handcrafted to adorn the tree. The silly mitten hat still finds its place on the top side of the tree, but now it has a friend that hangs next to it.
Sometimes I get lost between the past and present, and other moments are freshly made. Even new Christmas bloopers that will be told down through the years, like showing up out of town and realizing I packed the presents in the wrong car. Or how we purchased a tree that was too tall for our ceiling. It looked like a tall man who forgot to remove his top hat in a small house.
How could I have thought Christmas couldn’t get better than the past? I was talking with my dad and he mentioned that a person never realizes the impact childhood is having on their little ones. I made the comment, “I wonder what my girls are going to remember?” Dad replied, “You won’t know for twenty years. But it’s going to be good.”
God never intended for us to get trapped in the past, but for it to reflect what we want in our future.
A gift of the present? Yes. This must be what Christmas is all about. Or is it?
“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence, there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Psalms 16:11
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