Christmas Memories

Christmas Eve is here and Christmas morn will soon be upon us. There is no telling what special memories I will have from this year to one day share with others, but I already have many fond memories from year's past.

I remember listening to all of the old Christmas carols on my dad's reel to reel tape player. We had hours and hours of Christmas music that he had taped from the Armed Forces Radio while onboard his ship during one Christmas. I still hear those songs each year thanks to our Time Life Christmas collections, but I do miss the occasional radio announcer comments to the men and women serving our country.

There was the Christmas I discovered the truth about Christmas. It all happened in 1969 as my sister, brother, and I were playing hide-n-seek. I never understood why they were both so bad at that game. I could hide so well that they would never find me. Hours later I would come out of hiding to laugh at them for being such lousy seekers. On this particular day I was hiding in our attic. It was easily accessible even for a five year old, such as myself at that time. The access to the attic was a ladder attached down the wall in our garage.

As I was waiting and laughing that Bonnie and James would once again fail to find me, I noticed a box depicting the Fisher Price airport set. I was so excited because I had asked for that exact toy for Christmas. However, I knew that I could not say anything about it because my parents would punish me for being in the attic. I was certain that the punishment would be returning the airport set to the store ruining my Christmas forever.

Miraculously I was able to keep my mouth shut and not tell anyone what I had seen in the attic. The days until Christmas crept along in an unbearably slow pace. But finally that day came and I rushed to the living room anxious to unwrap the present from my parents. As soon as I entered the room I was crushed. Sitting in front of the Christmas tree, unwrapped and set out ready for me to play was the Fisher Price Little People airplane and airport. My five-year-old brain tried to figure this out. Only Santa Claus gave us presents that were not wrapped up in pretty paper, or at the least with the comic’s section of the newspaper. But why would Santa have left a present in our attic weeks before Christmas? He comes on Christmas Eve and leaves the presents then.

I slowly started to breath again and calmed down a little as I thought, “Maybe Santa just got me the same gift my parents bought for me.” After unwrapping all of my presents, the daunting truth remained: there is no Santa. How could my parents have done this to me? But I could never tell them how they ruined Christmas for me, unless I wanted to pay the price for hiding in the attic in the first place. Guess they will know the truth now.

I spent Christmas of 1974 in Caracas Venezuela. We went to a missionaries home for Christmas Eve for a cookout. We then went caroling in the neighborhood and I learned how to sing Silent Night in Spanish. My parents kept telling us not to expect any gifts for Christmas that year because the trip was our gift, but on Christmas morning we woke to find a small evergreen branch decorated with presents underneath it. My dad had illegally broken off the branch when we rode a cable car lift to visit a mountain peak and waterfall the previous day. He hid it from us, and probably the authorities, by keeping it zipped up inside his jacket. I learned later that he had gotten a rash from the sap for his trouble. Our gifts were watches that my parents had purchased while we were in Venezuela.

We spent another Christmas out of the country when we took a driving trip from Mississippi down to Mexico in 1979. We entered through Matamoris and drove down the East Coast of Mexico. We spent a couple days in a resort area with some great swimming pools, but not much else was nearby.

As we were trying to locate the resort we made a wrong turn and entered into a jungle area down this old dirt road. We wound up in what appeared to be an old abandoned Spanish Fort area. However, it was not abandoned. The people there looked as though they had never seen a car with non-Spanish people. We watched as children played in the dirt street that ran through the town area. They also played in a small creek that ran through the street, but based on the color of the creek and some of the things we witnessed, I don't think it was a natural creek.

I remember purchasing a sombrero and having to travel with it in my lap in the backseat of our Nissan Sentra. On our return trip we went through customs with some of the goods we had purchased, including two decorative knives and a new bag of oranges that we had just purchased. I noticed the sign at the border patrol station that said no weapons or fruit were allowed to enter the U.S. My dad told us to be quiet and let him do the talking. They asked him if we had anything to declare and he said no. They asked him if we had any weapons, fruit, vegetables, or live plants with us, and he said no. He later explained that the knives were decorations not weapons and that they didn't need to know about the oranges because we were not planning to sell them. Glad he knew about these things.

And then there was the Christmas in Jordan in 1995. I was privileged to be able to help the pastor of our church in the village of Jerash pass out the gifts from Samaritan's Purse. We walked all over the village taking these gifts on Christmas day to the homes of the children. At each home we were invited in to enjoy some traditional Christmas refreshments. The pastor even made sure that there was a box for our newborn son, Ashton. As the pastor and I were walking back following our last visit, he put his arm around me and told me that he was thankful that God sent us to him. He and his wife had already told us that we were their children and that they were Ashton's grandparents.

In 2000 we had to scurry around to avert a potential disaster. We had loaded up all of the presents and were spending Christmas with my parents. Ashton had told Santa that the only thing he wanted for Christmas was the Hot Wheels Shark Park set. Santa had been very nice and bought one in advance of the trip. As we were setting up the set, we discovered that an important piece was broken. Wendy and I quickly drove 20 minutes to Mobile, Alabama, the closest city to my parents home in Mississippi.

It was Christmas Eve and, of course, nothing was open. We arrived at a Kmart just as they were locking the doors. I pounded on the door as the employees were walking away from it, but nobody returned to help us. We finally found a place that was open, but it was similar to a Big Lots and sold only discontinued items. There was no way we would find Shark Park. So we purchased a Matchbox carwash set and devised our plan.

When Ashton woke on Christmas morning he found a note from Santa explaining that there had been an accident when he was coming down the chimney. It seems that Santa had somehow broken Ashton's present and had to replace it with another toy. But Santa told Ashton that he left the broken set with his parents so that they could take it back to the store in Florida and get a replacement. Ashton was thrilled that he got two presents because Santa accidentally broke his toy.

In 2004 we had a couple interesting things happen. Neither one was good, but they are memories that we will probably never forget. The first was my attempt at helping the boys make a Gingerbread train. It was a disaster and came out looking horrible. That Christmas the boys both woke up sick and after opening presents they both fell asleep on the floor.