Christmas always, at least for me, seems a good time to think back over the years and pick out a few of my favorite memories. I usually try to pick the ones with a clear view and not the ones fogged by the passage of the years and the death of a few brain cells.
As a three- or four-year-old little boy in Mississippi, I can remember Dad putting strings of those big, nightlight-sized colored bulbs on the cedar trees beside our driveway. At the time, those trees seemed 100 feet tall. Years later, when I drove by the old homestead, I realized those were actually bushes about six feet tall. But while the bushes were smaller the memory was still tall.
And my mom, not normally an overly creative lady, would have dad cut down a normal tree… sans the leaves… and she would wrap it in cotton to imitate snow, hang pretty-colored shiny balls and tinsel on it and light it with a spotlight. That was our Christmas tree and it was unique enough that, many years later, after we had moved to Bowling Green, WBKO came and did a story about Mom’s interesting Christmas tree.
I remember when our son, Jarrod… now nearly 40… was little, I rigged things up with a friend or two to create the Santa visit illusion. They did a great job of getting into the house quietly, leaving the presents under the tree, eating the cookies… though it seems I remember the milk was poured down the sink and a bottle of something else might have disappeared… good thing Rudolph was driving… and they even did a great HO, HO, HO as they “drove out of sight!” I suspect Jarrod doesn’t remember it, but it is one of my fondest memories of Christmas.
Not too many years ago, Twila and I were volunteers on the First Baptist Church TV crew. I had been blessed to be on the team that started it and some crazy person put me in charge for a few years. I always looked forward to doing the video of the Christmas Eve Candlelight Service. Sitting in the service is nice, but seeing it from our upstairs camera on our monitors in the control room as the candlelight spread through the sanctuary was beautiful and touching.
Thank you for revisiting some of my best Christmas memories with me. But none of those are as important as the real reason we celebrate Christmas… the birth of Christ, the Savior of the world. I know some of our readers are not believers and, as I always say… I totally respect your right to be wrong. To the rest of you… I hope you will make some great memories this holiday season but, most importantly, however you choose to do it, I hope you will find a special way to remember the birth of Christ and what that means to those of us who believe.
From me, Twila and the entire team at SOKY Happenings, may you have a truly blessed Christmas, a Happy New Year and may we all be blessed with a wonderful 2023!
