Christmas Memories 2018

Pondering ... remembering ... thanking God for the people represented by the things we used to celebrate this Christmas. 

The soup pot … was my mother’s. Always thrifty to the extreme, Mother did not scrimp on her cookware, and that soup pot, which may be fifty years old, serves me well. 

The dishes I set the table with … were a gift from my dad after mother passed away. Our family often vacationed at Lake of the Ozarks, taking over every small cottage in a retired truck driver’s resort, and enjoying blackberry cobbler at almost every meal … thanks to the wild blackberries that grew along the roadside. The dishes reminded me of those happy times, and when Daddy heard the story, he handed me a check. “You buy those dishes.”

The water goblets … Mother saw them in an antique store and loved them, but “could not afford them.” My siblings and I went together and bought them for her. The stems are tree trunks and oak leaves sprout upwards from the trunks. I don’t particularly like them, but I love the attached memory. Documentation in Mother’s papers claims these goblets were offered as store premiums back in the late 1800s.

The silver-plate knives, forks, soup spoons, etc. … my husband’s grandmothers—a set with three different sizes of forks, three different sizes of spoons, olive forks, sugar spoon, etc. Clearly created for a family far more refined than mine.

The crystal candlesticks … my children’s great-grandmother’s. More than one of the grown children in the family wanted them, but my mother-in-love gave them to her son and me.

The napkins … my best friend’s … who was also my current husband’s first wife, and mother to my step-son. She’s been in heaven since 1996, and remembering her is a joy.

The Christmas tree … my husband’s and his first wife’s. She was also my best friend and my step-son’s mother. The hand-made paper angel ornaments were her creation

The nativity set … a gift from my children and expanded by my step-son and his wife, bless them.

The snow people … made by my daughter, each snowman represented a beloved family member, including snow angels for those in heaven.

The miniature quilt beneath the porcelain nativity … a dear friend and sister-in-Christ. We have quilted together, prayed for one another, and served together in our local church for decades.

Christmas Day is drawing to a close. We’ve shared it “just the two of us,” my husband and I … and as I ponder the “cloud of witnesses” represented by soup pots and candlesticks, snow people and napkins … I am thankful. So. Very. Thankful. For the simple things that call to mind beloved friends and family members.

Merry Christmas, dear readers.