Christmas Remembrances
“What was your most memorable Christmas?”
That question was asked of the dozen Adult Bible Study members gathered for the December meeting in a living room beautifully decorated with Christian symbols. While munching cookies with hot cocoa, we began sharing about one of our most memorable Christmases. Some funny. Some sad. Some glad.
I chose to talk about when I was a kid and World War II was underway. We had recently moved to a West Texas town known for dust storms and droughts.
The war affected us as it did all in the nation—rationing of goods primarily. My dad, a pastor, served as one of the civil patrol wardens who paroled neighborhoods to make sure that houses were “blacked out” or darkened by shades with no lights shining anywhere. Practicing for an air-raid, I believe they called it.
One year on a Sunday night just days before Christmas, our car was stolen from the church parking lot while we were inside for a worship service. Our parents had hidden the Christmas presents for the four of us children in the car’s trunk. A few toys but mostly underwear and one set of new clothes each.
That Christmas could have been a really sad one. Daddy was in the hospital, and we missed him terribly. There was only one present for each child. But our mother made it special with her cooking surprises, laughter, games and love. Did we miss having presents? I’m sure we did. Yet celebrating Christ’s birthday with our small family was what this day was all about, Mom told us.
“Just think how hard Jesus’ mother had it that first Christmas,” she reminded us. “She only had swaddling clothes for her baby boy–and He was the Son of God.” Then she retold us the story of the first Christmas, reading from the Bible at times. I think she planted in me a desire to someday go see for myself those historic sites in Israel where our Savior walked– Nazareth, Bethlehem, Jerusalem. (Three of us children did get to go when we were grown).
Months later when our car was found, there were no tires on it, no presents in the trunk, and no gas ration stamps in the glove compartment. Repairing it in those days was out of the question. A member of the congregation lent Daddy a car to use for the remainder of the war so he could drive to his church office.
I have since enjoyed many other Christmases with plenty of gifts and gladness. I even got married on Christmas Day in the same Florida town where my parents met and married. My groom and I were surrounded by numerous loving family members. It was a most joyous Christmas!
But which Christmas memory pops into my mind each year at this season? The one where we had no special gifts–but we had the gift of the story our mother retold of the birth of Jesus, our Savior and Lord—the greatest gift to mankind. It is His birthday Christians have continued to remember and commemorate for more than two-thousand years.
My newest happy yuletide event I will retell for years to come happened several years ago. I pulled up to a service station on a Saturday afternoon to put gas in my car. Suddenly, a man I had never seen before appeared at my window. Behind him stood a woman and several young children, all dressed in red shirts with the name of a local church on them. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, but we want to fill up your gas tank as a Christmas gift to you,” he said. Shocked, I asked him why.
“A couple named Skip and Linda taught us to do this at Christmas time some years ago,” he said. What an unexpected surprise! Just a few months ago, I attended the memorial service for my friend Skip. In the many years I had known this couple their “acts of kindness” –giving gas– during the Christmas season was totally unknown to me. After this new-to-me family used their credit card to gas up my car, we said our goodbyes. As I pulled away, I shouted, “Thank you. God Bless. Merry Christmas.”
Yes, I am sure you too have a special Christmas memory you can share. Why not find someone and recall that unique time?
Prayer: Father God, we rejoice along with the angels announcing to the shepherds the birth of Jesus. We too proclaim, “Glory to God in the Highest.” Thank you for sending Him to earth. And thank you for friends and kind strangers who help make the Christmas season so memorable. Amen.
Scripture: Then the angel said to them[shepherds], “I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” (Luke 2:11-14 NKJV)
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