Christmas Stories from Readers

When I sent out a newsletter recently, I invited readers to share a story about a special way they celebrate Christmas or favorite ornament or gift they remember. I love hearing your stories and I hope you’ll enjoy these I’m sharing with you.

First Paty and her family have a very special Christmas tradition that helps them remember the birth of Jesus. Here’s what she shared.

I wanted to share about a Christmas tradition I love, and it is this. After dinner we all gather together (adults and children in the family, aunts, uncles, nephews, etc) and the smallest kid brings a basket of candy. On top of it lies a beautiful image of Baby Jesus. So the child takes the basket to each family member so they can kiss the Baby Jesus, take a candy, and thank him for something he or she feels grateful to Jesus (something that happened in the year, for family, health, whatever). After finishing with everyone, we all unwrap our candy, and in one of the candies there’s a small note that says: I’m staying with you! The person (adult or children) who gets that surprise note, gets to keep the Baby Jesus on the basket. It’s usually a sweet figurine, not real sized, but a bit smaller. It’s a tradition I’ve always loved! You can share if you see it fit…

We probably won’t be able to get all together this year, due to covid, but we’ll still do it at my house, God willing!

Gail shared a story about the baby Jesus too.

We had a nativity with a removal baby Jesus. I hid the baby until Christmas. My son would rush downstairs every Christmas morning to look to see Jesus before he even looked to see what “Santa” brought.

Don’t you love how her son was so excited about seeing the baby Jesus in the manger? How great if we could all have that kind of wonder when thinking about Christmas!

Then Robin shares a story about the year she got to pick out the Christmas tree.

When I was growing up, Christmas trees were not as full & lush as today’s trees. I was so tired of these straggly trees, so one year I begged my dad to let me go with him to pick the tree. Needless to say, we could hardly fit the tree through the door that year, but I was beside myself with joy.

Robin’s story makes me remember a time when two of my children who were probably 7 and 5 at the time Christmas tree hunting on our farm. My husband usually found a tree on the farm and brought it in for Christmas, but that year, we decided to go get one ourselves. My young son had a little hatchet and he was sure he could chop down the tree. While my husband has a good eye for size, I sometimes don’t. So we found this really green, nicely shaped cedar tree down in the field. My son and I managed to chop it down and somehow heft it all the way back to the house. We were on foot and then the tree was almost too big to get in our house. But we somehow made it work and had a fine big tree that year, the same as Robin did the year she got to pick her tree. Thanks for sharing your story, Robin.

Now one more story that you might think isn’t such a good memory, but Lori’s story just proves that the Lord can make good come from even the most unpleasant of circumstances at times. Here’s what Lori shared.

But one (Christmas memory) that always comes to mind is unfortunately, one year the day before Christmas, my husband, myself, our son (5) and our daughter (2) all came down with a bad case of the flu. I mean really bad. We only had one bathroom by the bedrooms, so my husband and son slept at the other end of the house where the other bathroom was. My husband set up a really nice sleeping area for the two of them. Turned out to be a great daddy/son bonding time. Our daughter and I slept in our master bed. It was a good bonding time for us also. My parents and my in-laws dropped off all the packages on Christmas eve. We opened them the next day little by little between naps. Sounds odd but it turned out to be what our little family needed as far as bonding and living for one another.

I’ve had some of those Christmases where flu was a present that wasn’t requested, but showed up anyway. While we can hope to stay healthy and avoid all the flu bugs and viruses this year, we still might have to share smaller gatherings for Christmas this pandemic year that will make for good family bonding times.

What Christmas stories do you have to share?

P.S. I did just send out a new newsletter with the news about Christmas at Harmony Hill  being on e-book sale for 99 cents or less and also included another book giveaway. If you didn’t get the newsletter, I’ll send you one. If you are on my e-mail list and you didn’t see the newsletter, it could be it landed in your spam folder. So give it a look.