Friday, November 30, 2012

Thoughts on Christmas coming and the busyness

Memories, holidays, traditions, family…..these are the things on my mind.  So many things bring back the childhood memories that to me are so wonderful.  A child’s memory is an amazing thing.  When I walk into a place and smell Apples and Oranges I am reminded of going to my Grandparent’s house in Idaho during the holidays~I can still sometimes go back there in my mind.  We pull up in the car and the shouts start “Uncle Jim is here, they are here”  We walk through the entry room and I smell/see the boxes of Apples and Oranges, then we are surrounded by family.  My Grandma hugging me.  Someone on the the phone calling the rest of the family who still lives in Emmett, telling them we have arrived and to come over.  I walk through the kitchen and dining room into the next room and get a hug from my Grandfather.  After a 10 hour drive we are ready to celebrate Christmas with family.  There is a big tree in the corner with so many lights and decorations on it, you just want to stare at it for ever.  All the family pictures on the walls and shelves surrounded by dolls and other knickknacks.  A shelve that contains the favorite Christmas movies that I still watch to this day.  Oh and of course the woodstove in the corner that we put our mittens on to dry (sometimes getting them back with burned marks oops). I will never get to be in this home again, it burned down two days before last Christmas.  My Grandfather has passed away.  All the cousins are grown and have families of their own~including me.  My Grandmother now lives in a new home that they finished building it just before Thanksgiving this year. 

Now I have children and the goal is to take some of my family traditions and some of my husbands and mesh them with new ones we create to help my boys have amazing childhood memories to take into adulthood.  I love the look in my boys eyes (even as a teen/pre-teen) when they know we are going to Grandma’s.

As we are preparing for Christmas this year I am being vary careful to listen to them and hear what things are important and have stuck out from the years of celebrating.  From the tree decorating, to the snacks, to the Christmas music, candle light services, the reading of the Bible Christmas story and the night before Christmas, watching Polar Express and Charlie Brown, to getting PJ’s on Christmas Eve, the sausages and waffles for breakfast~  All of this is great as long as the most important thing is remembered and passed down to my boys…..That Christ was born and we are celebrating God’s love for us.  All of the rest brings families together and shows love between us, but we need to make sure that our boys grow up knowing and to one day (possibly) teach their children about Jesus and the reason we have Christmas. 

No comments: