My Childhood Christmas!

Do you remember when you were a kid and every Christmas Eve, you would sneak from your room on tip-toes in hopes of getting one good glimpse of Santa Clause? Can you still smell the aroma of fresh baked cookies, cakes and pies? Didn't you just love putting up your Christmas tree and decorating it with candy canes, icicles and homemade ornaments? Did you sing Christmas music for weeks after Christmas had passed?

You are never too old to celebrate Christmas. Christmas is a time in celebrating life, family, and friendship. It is a time to rejoice in the Lord and be thankful for all that you have been given. Christmas is a time to sit back and realize all the good things you have and remember all the things you are grateful for. It is about having fun, celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ and being with one another in peace and harmony.

My Childhood Christmas
I remember when I was a small child and we did not have much in the way of material things like most other children in our area did. We grew up with a large family of nine which included our mother, father, three boys and four girls. Our father was a retired Marine and worked very hard to support our family. Our mother was a homemaker caring for us kids and from time to time would work side jobs to help out. We had very little things buts a whole lot of love. We were a close family, strong in morals and had a very good upbringing.

Decorating for Christmas is So Much Fun
Every year for Christmas, we had many different things that our family would do. We always put the tree up on Thanksgiving Day and decorated the entire house with homemade decorations of all kinds. Some of the decorations were made on paper, some were old household items that we painted. We use to always take TV guides and fold in one half of every single page and when we were done it formed the perfect Christmas tree. We would paint our tree and present in proudly in the living room for all to see. Our father would string lights throughout the home inside and out and our mother would craft handmade ornaments for the tree. All of us kids would collect pine cones and place them everywhere, on the tree, on the shelves, anywhere we thought it would look nice. We loved making popcorn garland and cinnamon tree ornaments. We would take cinnamon sticks and tie them together with ribbon and place them on the tree and they would make the entire room smell of cinnamon.

MMMM...I Love Christmas Dinner
Our dinner was spectacular and I honestly believe that every year, it just got better. We always baked a ham, potatoes, vegetables, pies, cakes, and many other goodies. We would serve it with cranberry sauce, yams, pies, candied apples, puddings, eggnog, and fresh baked cookies. We always saved some cookies and milk to put out for Santa and some cinnamon sticks for the reindeer. My family would gather around the table to eat Christmas dinner and just enjoy each others company. We would laugh, sing and reminisce about our past Christmas's. I can still taste the peanut brittle, popcorn balls and butterscotch pudding. We would make gingerbread houses out of graham crackers and candies and then eat it before it could even dry.

Christmas Music can Cheer Up Anyone
My mother and father would rehearse Christmas songs with us kids and we would sing them in front of the entire congregation at church. We use to love singing to our aunts and uncles and grandparents. Sometimes, us kids would make up our own Christmas songs and sing them. I remember having a blast going down the road as the entire family sang their hearts out to Christmas coming over the radio. We would go caroling in our neighborhood and by the time we were done, the entire neighborhood would be right their joining us.

Giving Back
If their is one thing I learned from my parents is that God gave us two hands, one to give and the other to receive. Every year at Christmas time, my father would go to each of our neighbors and cut their grass, help them decorate and work in their gardens for free as this was his Christmas present to them. Our mother would bake cakes, cookies and pies and have us kids deliver them door to door to each of our neighbors. We did not have much but we made do with what we had. Our parents use to help us make handmade Christmas cards for the elderly at the nursing home and the residents at the center for adults with special needs. I will never forget some of those people. They just enjoyed us being their and we enjoyed their company just as much, maybe even more. I remember this one man who we use to call "Steps" because he could not talk very much but the only thing he could say was "Aw Steps" every time he got excited or upset about something. He always made us laugh because he would laugh at anything and was so happy that happy kind of wore off on us. You could just feel the love and compassion these residents had for people and they really enjoyed the attention of knowing that their are people out their who have not forgotten about them.

Today I am a wife to a wonderful husband and father with five boys of our own. I try to instill into my kids the same morals that my family taught us. We pick a family each year and deliver to them a Christmas basket. My children go through all their belongings and we box up things they outgrow and wrap them up and give to the family we have chosen. The items we give may be used but they are always appreciated and it gives my children the understanding of what caring is about. I hope my story inspired you. It is just a glimpse of the love my family and I shared at Christmas when I was a child. I am blessed to still have all of my siblings and both of my parents alive. Although I live very far from my father and most of my siblings, we keep in touch and we still have that strong bond. I just pray that my children will instill the same morals and beliefs and keep our family traditions alive through their own children. God Bless you all and have a very merry Christmas.