Christmas is the best time of year, isn't it? Think about your favorite Christmas memory. Maybe it was an awesome gift, a hilarious moment, or maybe even an experience from this Christmas. Whatever it is, think about a Christmas memory you have that you could share with us. (And don't forget to comment on other people's posts)
In 1987 Mark and I really wanted to get Lazer Tag. It was the only thing I remember asking for. Mom and Dad said no, insisting it was too violent. But luckily on Christmas morning, Santa Claus had disregarded Mom and Dads fears and gave us Lazer Tag! We played it all day (and then they gathered dust). That might have also been the year that dad grew a beard and then shaved it, but we didn't even notice cuz we had Lazer Tag!
ReplyDeleteThis is Marie...
ReplyDeleteThis year, for our Family Home Evening before Christmas we had the kids act out the Nativity story. The kids acted out all of the different parts. After the wise men came to visit the baby Jesus, Will ran over to a chair and stood on top of it with a huge smile. Puzzled Drew and I said "Will what are you doing?" He said "I'm doing the part of God!" We asked him why and he said "Heavenly Father would have been watching from up in heaven, and he was really happy too." Drew and I had never really thought about what Heavenly Father was doing at the time of Christ's birth. It's amazing how much children can bring the spirit of Christmas into your home.
Santa Claus always was pretty generous to us kids! And that's a sweet story Marie. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteMy favorite thing we do during Christmas is making movies. Ok, so I don't always actually enjoy the process of MAKING the movies, but I always enjoy the end results. One of my favorite movies to make was the "I have problems, serious problems" movie. I loved hanging out with my siblings as actual friends. Plus, I got to know Marie a LOT better after seeing her play the part of Legion. Mark wiping boogers on glass, Adam dressed as a woman, Holly being totally goofy after midnight, the shrinking man... Good times!
Two weeks after Holly’s birth, I took a half-time teaching job that offered no benefits. It broke my heart to leave Holly with a babysitter, so I passed up a fulltime position that would have provided health insurance and paid vacation. Money was tight, but adequate, until December. Then, my two-week unpaid Christmas break cut my small check in half!
ReplyDeleteJay and I came up with an idea that we thought would put food on the table. My parents and Jay’s parents had each sent twenty-five dollars for us to buy gifts for ourselves. We both need coats desperately, but decided to wait until the after-Christmas sales. That way, we hoped to get coats and still have money left over.
Everything went as planned until tithing settlement time arrived. We had kept current on our tithes, so visiting the bishop seemed like a mere formality—that is until we remembered the fifty dollars in gift money. Did we need to pay tithing on it? Wasn’t it supposed to be spent on Christmas gifts? If our parents would have just sent us coats, we wouldn’t have ripped off a sleeve or some buttons to give to the bishop. But our parents had not sent us coats. They had sent money. Fifty dollars.
Jay and I finally decided to ask Bishop Judd what we should do. I still remember his exact words. He shook his bald head and shrugged his shoulders as he answered, “You don’t be picky with the Lord; and He won’t be picky with you.” We paid the five dollars.
We had also budgeted five dollars of our own money to be spent on gifts for Christmas day. I stayed within my limit and bought a key chain for Jay. He splurged a bit and bought a pair of fake leather gloves for me. I pretended to chastise him for spending so much, but secretly I was glad. My hands had been really cold that winter. (We didn’t buy a gift for Holly because we figured she was way too young to even know what day it was.)
In addition to my teaching job, I had been painting murals on the walls of a local children’s hospital. When I had first approached the hospital administrator about the paintings, he had naturally asked me how much they would cost. I told him that I hoped to earn three dollars an hour and admitted that I didn’t exactly know how long it would take me to complete the work. I gave him a rough estimate of how many hours I thought it would be. As it turned out, a few days after Christmas, I finished the murals.
I had recorded my hours in a notebook that I kept with my paint supplies. I had not, however, regularly totaled those hours. When the project was finished and I finally did add the hours up, I was shocked to learn that it had taken me almost twice as long as I had told the administrator it would. “I can’t charge that much,” I told Jay. “The hospital people will think I’m a cheat! I’m just going to say it took half as long as it really did.”
Jay disagreed. He felt like I had done the work and done a good job. He convinced me to report all or the time spent and to still ask for three dollars per hour.
My hand was shaking as I gave the administrator’s secretary my bill. “It took a bit longer than I thought it would,” I said sheepishly.
She stared at the written hours and at the amount due. “I’m not sure we will pay you three dollars per hour,” she said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She disappeared into the administrator’s office and didn’t come out for what seemed like a very long time.
My thoughts raced. Why had I let Jay talk me into charging such a large amount? How could I be so stupid? And slow?
At last, the secretary reentered the room. “We’ve decided not to pay you three dollars an hour,” she said.
“That’s o.k.,” I replied.
She continued. “We have decided to pay you four dollars an hour. And we have eight more murals that we hope you will paint for us.”
Four dollars an hour?
I could hardly believe my ears. As I stood in that hospital in Omaha, Bishop Judd’s words echoed in my mind, “You don’t be picky with the Lord, and He won’t be picky with you.” It was a merry Christmas and an even happier new year.
One moment comes to mind whenever I am asked about my favorite Christmas. It was about 7:30 a.m. Dec 25th, 1985. My siblings and I had just run up the stairs to see what Santa had brought us. My legs froze when I saw the large box under my stocking. On the box was a funny looking mustached cartoon character. I stared at the box. One second, two seconds, five seconds. I was no longer aware of my siblings opening gifts. I was deaf to their laughs and squeals of delight. Everything seemed to vanish. Everything but that box. The logic that had previously held my world together was unraveling faster than I could piece it back together. After what seemed like ten minutes of analyzing and crunching the new data with all its implications I eventually came to accept these two truths.
ReplyDelete1) Mankind had created a device that allowed anyone to plug a controller into a TV and actually control the cartoons!
2) That device was in my house at this very moment!
I fell back, exhausted, onto the couch and stared up at the ceiling as my chest heaved in and out. My dad came up to me and asked what was wrong. I looked back and him and through gasping breaths I panted … “I just can’t believe it………I got what I wanted.”
Looking back it is funny to think how amazed I was by the original Nintendo. The fact that controlling TV cartoons was the closest thing I could relate it too just seems odd. Perhaps it is in part because I did not have an older brother and had never heard of the Atari or ever gone to an arcade. In any case, I have never had a bigger surprise since, and I don’t think I could. The equivalent would be something like going out to my car tomorrow and noticing that it can now also fly me to school if I like.
(Emily, I’m glad you were alive for that monumental Christmas, even if you were only 6 months old.)
Drew- laser tag is awesome. We should go to Leo's Place sometime and play it.
ReplyDeleteMarie- Will is an observant boy. You should be proud of that kid.
Emily- you do have problems, serious problems...
Mom- when you only have a few dollars, it makes you think carefully about what you really need (even if it's a key chain).
Christian- Nintendo rocks! Emily probably doesn't remember playing the original but she loved the Super Nintendo.
I always like thinking of all the weird people we've had over for Christmas dinner. My favorite guest has to be the African-American Baptist that Holly invited a few years ago. Good times! It still cracks me up when I remember Grandma Harris saying "I've never met a black man, but I smelled one once".
Another memory that I have is from the same year that we did the "serious problems" movie when we went bowling over Christmas break. I went bowling with Thomas' family recently and it made me think of that. I think that is the only time we've ever been bowling as a family and I would like to do it more often. It was so fun.
Andrew decided, for Christmas 2009, to give every one of us a family history gift. He did the genealogical research on Grandma Harris’ side of the family, and found enough names so that each adult in our current family could go through the temple representing a dead ancestor. It was such an incredibly thoughtful gift. Emily, Christian, Andrew, Marie and I did the baptisms in advance. Before we did the endowments, Andrew presented a slide show telling us about the homes, the lives, and the related stories of these special ancestors. It made them seem alive. I remember that I represented James Reynolds and Trudy represented his wife, Georgina Reynolds. Generations were linked together, and I thought about the importance of “family” in God’s eternal scheme. Thank you, Andrew, for that wonderful Christmas gift.
ReplyDeleteWhat great Christmas memories! I loved reading every one of them!!!
ReplyDeleteThese are great. Thanks for doing this Em! My memory is of my first Christmas when I didn't get anything for Christmas and cried all day while Mom and Dad thought I was just teething.
ReplyDeleteActually my most memorable Christmas was when Dad was Bishop and invited a strange woman to spend Christmas Eve with our family. He was late getting home that night, and he phoned Mom to say he was bringing a poor woman from the ward home with him. I was a bratty teenager and felt sure this woman would ruin my favorite part of the Holiday.
I still remember what she looked like as she stepped into the house that night. She was very skinny and pale with slumped shoulders and thin dishwater hair. She wore a black leather jacket and old-fashioned jeans. She smelled of stale cigarette smoke. I couldn't believe Dad had invited any stranger, especially some scary-looking woman, on Christmas Eve of all nights!
While we ate dinner at a restaurant, the woman explained how she had been living with her boyfriend before he was arrested and placed in jail. She was now waiting for him to get out. I didn't do a lot of talking. I listened and watched the woman curiously, still feeling bitter that Dad would allow someone like this to intrude on our evening. She said a few things that surprised me. She had gotten a degree in science and had been planning to go on in school. She had been working towards a bright future before being derailed by her current boyfriend.
After we went back to the house, we sat down in the living room to open gifts. Mom had hurriedly wrapped a small gift for the woman to open. We each opened our presents. I remember I got a set of ruffly, red, flannel pajamas that I thought I was much too mature to wear. When it came time for the woman to open her gift, she smiled and carefully unwrapped the small package. Inside was a pair of socks. She looked down at the socks as if they were made of pure gold. Tears welled in her eyes as she expressed her gratitude. She looked around the room and said, "I'm sorry. I don't have a gift to give." We had a piano sitting in the living room that none of us could play very well. I remember the woman asking if she could play it. She sat down and played carols, and we sang along. Before the night was over, I found myself singing my heart out, smiling, experiencing a feeling of warmth that I hadn't noticed before at Christmas.
That Sunday, I saw the woman sitting down the row from us in Sacrament meeting and watched over the next several months as she transformed into a lovely, confident-looking young woman who not only became active in the church, but soon became engaged to a nice young man. That was the year I distinctly remember Christmas taking on new meaning for me, beyond my own selfish wants. I am grateful to Dad for setting the example he set that year and always, and for the gift he and that woman gave to me.
I enjoyed reading all of these. You are all great. Thanks, Holly, for your kind words. Love, Dad
ReplyDeleteHey, remember how we all used to post memories to this blog... good times.
ReplyDelete