As the holidays approach it makes me think of the things I did as a child to prepare for the coming of the holiday season. First there was always the Christmas tree for the coming of my favorite holiday in the world! The decision was always whether we would use a "fake" tree to mine and my little sisters dismay or a fresh green one we had to go and pick out ourselves! Oh joy of joys! We loved getting to pick out our own tree! It was a family thing and we loved the day as much as the event and coming home with that beautiful tree and the smell in the house WOW there just aren't words to describe the feelings that it struck inside my heart!
When I was really young I can remember going "way down in the country" which as a child seemed like such a far distance! Now we can travel the same road and I am amazed at what a short time it takes to get there and am sometimes not sure we have come the correct way because we arrived too soon!
Anyway, there were times we would drive to the woods to harvest a cedar tree from our family "hunting" land for our Christmas tree. Of course I always wanted the biggest tree I could find and Mom and Dad would both tell me "We can't get that one it will be too tall to go in the house!" I would tell them "I can stand beside it and it is not bigger than me. That means it would be ok in the house!" I never won the argument and was very rarely happy with the tree we chopped down until we got home and I indeed saw how big it was once we got it in the house! Quite large and if we had picked the one I wanted it would have never gone in the door!
One particular year I look back on now, I was a teenager and voiced my opinion very rudely about the tree we went to the pasture at Mamaws to get. It was the top from a pine tree and I told Mama how ugly I thought it was going to be and pouted all the way home and fussed and fussed. We got it in the house and it was just the right size and the lights were so beautiful the way they played off the long pine needles. I think it was probably one of the prettiest trees we ever had! I think the Lord had a lesson in that one for me! I told Mom I was sorry for being so mean and the tree was very pretty and I was glad that we had gotten that one and not some other tree. I am not sure if it made her feel any better but I knew it was my place to try and make her feel better after I had been so mean.
There are things we never understand as children that we can look back on as adults and fully understand what they meant and feel such guilt at something we did or didn't do. Then other times we can gain a better understanding of something in our lives and do better by someone because of things we went through as a child and now see as an adult.
Not sure if that makes any sense if you have never had something like that happen to you but they say with age comes wisdom and never has a truer statement been spoken when you realize something from childhood and it becomes crystal clear as an adult.
Christmas memories, write them down before you forget them. One day they will be important to someone and be a part of history. Even if it is a history of you that history is no less important than the history recorded in books children learn from in school!
It's a good thing, I promise!
