Creating Memories

Share with each other what has been one of your favorite Christmas’ as an adult. What made it special?

How might you make this Christmas special?

Our Experience

In the fall of 1995, we had moved into a new house with our three teenage boys and four-year-old daughter. It was beautiful, sitting far off the street atop a gentle, sloping hill. It overlooked a wetlands area that had been full of wildflowers. The trees there looked like a New England postcard with their brilliant colors in the fall. Facing west, the sunsets were amazing. A long driveway on the side ended in a great basketball court surrounded by a tall stone wall of huge boulders. The house was perfectly laid out for entertaining, and according to neighbors often used to host the neighborhood Christmas party, a tradition we continued.

It was that Christmas that our holiday music graduated from Andy Williams to the Canadian Brass, Boston Pops and Celtic Christmas music. I savored Christmas that year with the help of a fragrant Yankee Candle in its cool jar.

“Are you getting sad remembering that Christmas,” Libby asks.

“Not at all,” I reply.

“Remembering it inspires me to think about what can make this Christmas special,” I add.

“It helps me stop and be mindful of what is wonderful about our life, our family and our friends right now.”

“What about yours?” I ask.

“I don’t think anything else is needed in this post,” is her editorial comment.

“But I have been thinking about it,” she goes on.

“I think it was the first Christmas I was a mother.”

(Our son, Jonathan, was born on December 19th . He will be 50 next week. Yikes!)

“My parents drove up to take him and me to Charlotte. I held him in my lap the whole time.” (Car seats did not exist in those days. Her parents had a nice Cadilac, and we had a VW Beetle, in which I came later. We were kids with a kid. (At least I was.)

Remembering helps us slow down and be present to the blessings of this Christmas.

What was your favorite Christmas?