By Staff
Michelle Blaylock, Mom's Corner
I love this time of year. I think one of the biggest reasons is because of my parents. They each made Christmas special by what they did during the holidays.
For my mom it meant a time of decorating the house, preparing special foods, and having family come for visits. For my daddy it meant a time of secret gifts, eating Mom’s special foods, and spending time remembering the past with family.
I have vivid memories of “helping” Mom in the kitchen. When I was a little girl, usually one Saturday before Christmas my mom, grandmother, and aunts would gather at my grandmother’s house to make goodies. They would make just about anything and everything you could think of. I remember candies like fudge, divinity, and peanut brittle. They would also make cookies, cakes, and snacks like Chex Mix. Literally every counter and table would be covered in goodies, they would even set up card tables to hold the overflow. It was amazing to see what these women could turn out in a few hours time and how they could use one stove to make everything so quickly. Keep in mind this was back in the day before the wonderful world of microwaves. (OK, I just seriously dated myself.)
I often wonder how many times those women wanted to scream at me to get out of the way. However, I never remember them doing it. They always found something for me to do. Hence, the precious memories.
My daddy also had his way of making Christmas special, other than eating what Mom made! He would take me shopping for a gift for Mom and he made a special point of encouraging me to keep it a secret. Daddy taught me that giving a gift could be more fun than getting a gift. After Mom and Daddy adopted my four brothers and two sisters, I got to get in on the planning for Christmas even more.
After I became a mom, I really began to discover the joy of Christmas. Of course, my husband and I have created our own traditions as well as blending what we bring from our families. We make it a point to focus our children on the birth of our Savior, Christ. I remind them as we do other traditions, such as the cooking, shopping, or decorating, that the reason we can celebrate at all is because of our Heavenly Father’s ultimate gift, Christ.
I have discovered, however, that although you can try to share your traditions with your children they will develop their own ideas and thoughts as proven by my 17-year-old. She has a strong sense of appreciating the reason for the season. However, she doesn’t appreciate my passion for decorating our home.
OK, maybe four Christmas trees in our home was a little overwhelming along with multitudes of other decorations. My 17-year-old obviously thought it was, as proven by her exclamation of “Mother! Christmas threw-up in our house!”when she walked into our home after work. Oh well, I think she and her siblings will still have priceless memories to cherish as she grows older because the toys will probably be forgotten, the food will be eaten, but the memories will last a lifetime.
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