Christmas Memories

Some of the memories of Christmases past:

*Sitting by the Christmas tree, by our front window, in our little home in St. Louis Park, MN, listening to Christmas records (yes, actual records). Andy Williams was one of my favorites.

*Perry Como and Andy Williams Christmas specials on TV.

*Christmas "pageants" at church. In our little Lutheran Church the kids would put on a Christmas program. Each of us would learn a "piece," a Bible verse, for example, and share it with the congregation. We would also sing Christmas songs.

*Christmas Eve: A big day for us--
*We'd start out at church in the afternoon. At the service we would always receive a little blue box with Christmas images on it. It was filled with candy.
*Then we'd head to St. Paul to hang out with my mom's side of the family--the great uncles and aunts. We'd have dinner and sing Christmas carols. If we had a "piece" from the Sunday School program, we had to stand in front of the tree and recite it (or sing the song we learned.)
*At 10 or 11 (I can't remember which) it was back to church. Grandpa always spoke at that candlelight service. I can vividly remember the crunch of the snow as we would walk into church that evening.
*Next, we went to grandpa's and grandma's house (around midnight) for what grandma called, "A little lunch." Breads, meats, herring (yuck!) and then, finally, gift opening. In our family the tradition was to watch as others opened their gifts, starting with the youngest. I often knew what I was getting as my younger brothers usually received the same thing.

After Jan and I were married we ran between her family and my family functions. Her family open gifts in a mad free-for-all. Interesting as her family was quiet and reserved and mine is loud and noisy.

Since moving to Phoenix we've created new traditions over the years:
*The annual trip to Disneyland in early December
*Peter Piper Pizza before the Christmas Eve marathon of services
*Christmas Eve services with our community of faith--back in the Joy days we had 8 Christmas Eve services. We're currently at 4 at Grace.
*Christmas Day we were up bright and early to open gifts before I had to head back to Joy to serve communion for two hours. Now, with no Christmas Day responsibilities, we sleep in a bit.
*When we were all younger, our families would go Christmas caroling on Christmas Day night.

Throughtout the month of December it's all Christmas music, all the time. Christmas shows on TV if we like them. Nightly walks with our dogs enjoying the Christmas lights in the neighborhood.

This is our first Christmas without mom. It will be different.