My Christmas memories start out with lots of family. We always traveled to one of my grandmother's houses on Christmas eve and ate lots of good food with my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Later on in my life this gathering moved to our house right after the Christmas candlelight carol sing at our church. It was always cold and we loved it if we had a "white Christmas." We would always be bundled from head to toe with at least three pair of socks on to keep our toes warm when we ventured out into the winter wonderland to sled, build snowmen, forts and have epic snowball fights. These times always ended up with a cup of hot chocolate in front of a toasty fire. Mom was always in the kitchen baking something good and we would help her making our favorite Christmas cookies and candies. We always would gather around the tree for Dad to hand out presents on Christmas eve and before we could open presents we would read the great story from the Bible about the first gift of Christmas. I could never sleep late on Christmas morning and so the whole family got up early to open presents, then it was off to Aunt Kay's house to eat more, play games and watch football of course.
As you have probably figured out my kids have few memories of snow and cold. They think it is really cold when the temperatures dip below 75. They have no idea why you might want to wear more than one pair of socks or the proper methods for building snowmen. My children now associate the Christmas holiday with their summer vacation from school. We have a tradition of having a squirt gun fight on Christmas day and usually find some time around the holidays to go swimming. We invite our "island family" over for a BBQ and usually eat lots of good food with Aunts, Uncles and cousins. We have nice church gatherings where we sing Christmas carols and hope the fans are blowing our way, since the church is usually packed. Sara is in the kitchen right now making the kids favorite Christmas cookies and memories along the way. Nathan just brought me a nice Sample.
We always take time to read the Christmas story on Christmas eve. Last year we got to act out the story on our front porch.
Really the Christmas season is all about Jesus and how he came to bring all of us into His family. From one Christmas tradition in the snowy midwest to another on a tropical island in the Indian Ocean that fact remains the same. Christmas has always been and will always be a celebration of the love of God when He sent Christ for us.
Merry Christmas to all
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