Christmas is just four short days away. I have to be honest that this is not going to be an easy Christmas for my family.
I shared back in June, that my dad has terminal prostate cancer. Well, in the past few weeks since Thanksgiving, he has been getting worse, and now we realize that he will be going home to be with Jesus soon. We don’t know exactly when, days/weeks, but it will be soon.
Although this Christmas, and probably all Christmases from here forward, will be marked by sadness over the passing of my father, I don’t want to remember Christmas in that way. I have so many wonderful and fun memories of Christmas with my family, and I know that we have more memories and traditions to make in the coming years.
So, the question of the day today is:
What is your favorite Christmas memory or tradition?
I always love to hear from you all – my wonderful readers. And I know it will bring a smile to my face to read about how you celebrate Christmas with your families.
One of my favorite traditions was that my mom would get my sisters and I a new ornament every year. We always loved getting out the ornaments and putting them in order by the years before we hung them up on the tree.
When I got married I took my ornaments with me to put up on my own tree, and now I love to show my ornaments to my kids, tell them the stories behind them, and give them a new ornament every year too. I want to pass the tradition on to them.
I am going to take the next few weeks off, until the new year, to celebrate Christmas, to spend time with my family and to remember and celebrate my father’s life. I would be so grateful if you would remember my family in your prayers over the next few days and weeks.
Also, my first post as a contributing writer for Simple Organic is posting on Wednesday, and I’m so excited about that, and I would encourage you to head over there to read about ways you can reduce waste and make the after-Christmas clean-up easier.
I wish you all a very blessed Christmas and Happy New Year, as we rejoice that God sent His own Son to earth as a baby, and look forward to all that God is going to do in this upcoming year of our lives.
Blessings to You!
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My family has many traditions, but here is the one that always makes me laugh: My family has a large Christmas brunch & every year my mom forgets to bring out the cinnamon rolls until the very end when everyone is too full to enjoy them! 🙂
I will certainly say a prayer for your family. I pray that God will bless you with more tears of happiness than tears of sadness as you celebrate your father’s life & the birth of Jesus.
Prayers to you & your family during this season.
My favorite holiday tradition came from my mom. She would make my sister & I wait to come out on Christmas morning. She would start the coffee brewing, turn on the Christmas lighs and get situated on the couch with the camera. Only then could we girls come out and see what Santa brought. I hated it as a kid – the anticipation was awful! However, now that I have two little girls of my own I do the same thing. I love getting to watch their expressions of surprise by the light of the tree. It’s such a magical moment and one I wouldn’t trade for the world!
Christmas morning was the only morning of the year that I didn’t mind waking up really early. The earlier the better! We would sneak out to the living room to see what Santa brought when the house was still dark and quiet.
We also have always watched It’s a Wonderful Life every Christmas Eve and I probably will watch that movie on Christmas Eve for the rest of my life.
We are going to be starting some of our own traditions this year, as it is our first with our baby, and we are so excited! As a child, one of my fondest memories occurred yearly after my brother, sister and I opened gifts with my parents. My dad’s parents lived next door and Grandma was like clockwork with a phone call wanting to talk with each of us kids and find out what we got. This continued into adolescence and even college and early married years. My grandma passed away almost 4 years now, and I miss those calls. However, my dad keeps them going by doing the same thing, whether he intended to fill that job Grandma started or not, it is now a phone call I greet with a lump in my throat in memory of Grandma and a smile and giggle at my Dad.
Holidays have several bittersweet spots for us here and we think of you and your family as you face this difficult time. I pray that the memories this Christmas are especially precious and that the smiles and laughter outweigh the sadness. May God’s goodness and love surround your family and carry you through.
I’m so sorry about your dad! My grandfather died two days before Christmas when I was 14, and his funeral was two days after Christmas on his birthday, so that gave me some sad memories…yet there were also some happy and funny moments. For example, because of the freezing rain that fell on Christmas, in the cemetery everyone was slipping and sliding (except my uncle, who had the sense to wear boots instead of dress shoes and eventually stomped holes in the ice crust for everyone else to step in!) but nobody got hurt; it was just ridiculous, everyone trying to be solemn while skittering in all directions and falling over tombstones!
Without question, my favorite Christmas memory is giving birth to my son on Christmas Eve 2004, especially the point when we got from the delivery room to the regular hospital room at exactly the time the late service was starting at my church; I thought of my friends there singing about the birth of a special baby boy, and I felt very joyful and triumphant! And then there were the several times during the night when my baby and I lay awake gazing into each other’s eyes, awwww. 🙂