I was asked to talk briefly about what Christmas means to me at our Church’s Christmas candlelight service. Here is what I read:
Considering Christmas remembrances brings to mind many different things. I hear often about how we must focus more on giving, and how blessed it is to give rather than receive. But receiving can provide it’s own special joy. I would like to share some Big Love Gift remembrances.
At some point during our childhood, my sister dreamed of having a Patty Playpal, a very large life-sized doll. Our parents put one on layaway, budgeting carefully to have it paid for by Christmas. When we came out on Christmas morning, our grandmother was standing in front of the doll. At first my sister thought that Santa didn’t come for her at all … but then, alas, our grandmother moved and there it was, her special gift. She treasured that doll even after she was grown. This big doll was a Big Love Gift to my sister.
On one Christmas eve night in Moccasin, California, my sister and I slept in a vacant house next door to our grandparents. We were told that someone would walk over and get us on Christmas morning. Before going over there for bed, our grandmother gifted us with hand-made poodle skirts to wear on Christmas day. We woke up in the middle of the night, put on our poodle skirts, and sat there for who knows how long in the dark and unheated house. It seemed like we waited for hours! Eventually we tried to go back to sleep, poodle skirts and all. Those poodle skirts were a Big Love gift that we talk about to this day.
Another grandmother that lived in Oregon mailed us hand-made slippers every year, along with fruitcake wrapped in bourbon-soaked cheesecloth. We always wore the slippers until they were full of holes, but let the adults have the fruitcake. After we became adults, we better appreciated the big love that went into those handmade gifts.
Money was really scarce during my junior high and high school years. There was a shoe store in Downtown Bakersfield where we lived at the time that had the most beautiful shoes that I had ever seen. I would always want to look at the window display. One year, sometime before the holidays, my mother put a pair of red patent leather shoes from this store on layaway. I still remember opening that gift on Christmas morning, and can even remember the smell of the shoe leather. That was a Big Love Gift.
For years, we adults drew names for Christmas. One year, in the early 80’s my mother drew my name. She made me a very special Christmas gift, which I am wearing now. It’s a black sweatshirt with many different colored buttons sewn in a design of her own creation. Big love went into the making of this gift which I wear every Christmas season to honor her.
These are gifts that keep on giving to this day. There was great love, thought and sacrifice put into them which, rather than the gift itself, is why they are remembered.
The biggest gift that keeps on giving is God’s gift of His Only Son, which we celebrate on Christmas Day. It’s the ultimate gift of love, thought and sacrifice and to me, it’s the biggest Christmas remembrance of all.