My Dear Children,
My prayer is that you will have a wonderful time celebrating the birth of Jesus and that you will not forget that ( Jesus, is the reason for the season)!
I remember our Christmas times when I was a child and how excited I would be when we would go out and pick the Christmas tree, out in our pasture. At times there was a lot of snow but what fun we had trying to decide which was the most perfect one.
I must confess that I did not give a lot of thought to Jesus or his birthday. We would sing Christmas songs and I think we always had small statues of the birth of Christ with the sheep and the shepherds. I was all excited with the decorations and the tree and all the special little things around like candy, fruit and nuts, which we did not have very often. I was always in a hurry to see what was in my stocking. We all had a stocking hanging somewhere and Christmas morning it was always full.
A couple of years ago someone was telling me that when they were a child if they were naughty their stocking would have a lump of coal in it. I am glad that Jesus didn’t give me a lump of coal because I was naughty, He forgave me instead! What a way to destroy a child’s Christmas.
My dear children don’t ever give someone a lump of coal give them a little love and grace instead.
My dad would give me a dollar or two to buy presents and I would go to the dime store. What fun I had buying little things for my family. I spent a long time looking and deciding what to buy for my brother and sister’s for a nickel, dime or a quarter at the most and then be very secretive to get them home and wrap up each little gift.
As soon as the tree was up, I would hide these gifts on the tree. Other gifts would begin to appear and I would try to see who they were for. As I look back now, that week or two before Christmas was so filled with expectation. And after all the gifts were given out and opened it was kind of a letdown.
Christmas morning I just couldn’t wait for everyone to get up so we could open the presents. It seemed like they multiplied overnight. I realize now we did not have a lot of money so all our big gifts were clothes that we needed for school and the winter. I remember the little gifts from my family many of which were homemade, Christmas was wonderful!
Dear family I want you to know we didn’t lack anything. I expect my dad would have liked to do a lot more for us but I want him to know he did enough. We did not lack anything our house was filled with love, peace and joy all the things that are important.
The angels sang Joy to the world, we had it. Jesus said peace I give you, we had it. Jesus said love one another and we did. All these years have gone by and we still have peace and joy in our family. Thank you Jesus for your wonderful gifts given so freely.
Now I can say I am much more aware that Christmas is the birthday celebration of our Savior Jesus Christ and the gift from Him is eternal life.
My dear children make sure you receive the gift of spiritual life there is no greater gift and it is there for the asking.
You are in my thoughts and prayers every day.
All my love,
Dad