MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Hello! and Merry Christmas to you all! I hope you've all had a wonderful day!

Our day has been chock full and very busy and right now everyone is winding down. It's nice to have everyone together. The kids all got along great and shared new toys and have been very, very good. Lots of presents, lots of food, lots and lots of love. It's been a good day.

The following is something I wrote for our church newsletter. It tells of other happy memories and I thought I'd share. Have a wonderful evening!

Childhood Christmas Memories from Ohio

I grew up in the small rural town of Navarre, Ohio. The type of town where children could walk from one end of town to the other and not be afraid. Someone would watch out for us.

In my memory, we always had snow for Christmas. Actually, in my memory, we always had snow from Thanksgiving until Valentine’s Day, but that is another story! The Kiwanis Club always sold Christmas trees at the closed-for-the-Winter ice cream stand. Mom and I did not have a car until I was old enough to take driverrs' training in school, so we would pull my sled up the hill, buy our tree and tie it on and slide it back down the hill. Mom always picked out a tree with little pine cones on it. When we got it inside, the pine cones would pop and crackle as they opened up. That entertained Louie, our orange tabby cat.

On the Sunday before Christmas, Mom and I, and my sister and her family, would all go to Grandma’s for “Sunday Christmas”. My nieces and I were always excited at the prospect of having two Christmases. Mom has always said it’s nice to spread out the good times.

In school we always had a Nativity pageant and heard the wondrous story of baby Jesus coming. We did not worry about being politically correct or religiously biased. We all celebrated together. In Church, we always ended our Christmas service with Santa coming to hand out candy or fruit. He would tell us about Baby Jesus, too. I think it is sad that today’s children can not have this joy of the blending of Christmas. For us it all fit together very well. It was “right”. It was “joy”.