My First Christmas as a Mother

I had just turned 20 when I gave birth to my first son. Dec.25, 1963 was the first Christmas I would be celebrating the holiday as the mother of a 9 month old baby boy. It was different now that I had my own home to decorate and get ready for the Christmas holiday.

I wanted to have the perfect Christmas tree for Santa to put those presents under. My mother always did a lot of Christmas baking. She had too, there were 10 of us. Now I thought I had to follow her footsteps and do the same things she always did. We would still be celebrating the holiday with family, so there was no need for me to do a bunch of baking, but I did it anyway and we ended up eating Christmas cookies until Valentines day.

I paged through Christmas catalogs trying to find just the right presents for Santa to bring for my young son. Again, just like the Christmas cookies, my son got more presents then he would ever possibly use.

We always attended late Christmas eve services in our family. That was a tradition even when we lived out there on that North Dakota prairie. Santa would always seem to come when we were in church. On my first Christmas as a mother, I was unable to do that though. My son just wasn't up to going to church late in the evening so we stayed home and waited for Santa to come.

I tried to make my son's first Christmas celebration as close to the celebrations I had growing up. Lots of food, lots of presents, but most of all lots of love. I think I succeeded in doing that for the most part. 47 years later, he doesn't remember a thing about it, but it made me feel good knowing I did my best to make his first Christmas special.

As the years have flown by way too fast, some of those Christmas traditions have changed. One more son joined our family and also we now have 4 grandsons to help us celebrate that special holiday. An artificial tree sometimes stands in the corner of the living room, rather then a real one. Stuffed animals, cars, trunks, and electric trains are no longer on Santa's lists. They've been replaced with video games, cellphones etc.

One thing hasn't changed that much though since that Christmas in 1963, the love we have for each other. There still seems to be plenty of that to share. We may not see eye to eye on everything throughout the year, but when Christmas rolls around, we try to think about just how lucky we are to have each other. I hope that never changes.

Source: personal experience