Merry Christmas

As a kid we never opened family presents Christmas morning.  My dad always preached Christmas Eve Midnight service, the Faasse family get-together always started early. So we would wear PJ's to church and after hearing dad preach, in costume, from someone connected to the nativity we would head home and to bed.  The next morning was off to Cheryl's for brunch and a Present exchange and that afternoon was the Stouten's party. There were changes year to year, this year the party was at Abby's but there are some things that just should not change, for example it's not Christmas breakfast without my moms quiche, and it dons't seem right Dad didn't preach.
As far as the Stouten side things changed there long ago, but Kate almost brought me to tears when she gave Jacqueline a lifesaver book.  Grandma Audrey always had a lifesaver book for each of us, and so I was glad to have Kate keep the tradition alive.   For a brief moment I felt like I was back in the breezeway at the house on Radcliff.  The tinsel tree lit up in the corner, the puzzle nativity atop the entertainment center, the clay santa boot on the table filled with candy canes, the memories of Christmas long ago.  The adults would talk and the giant stacks of presents would come out out and so would the spider cookies. Grandma busy in the kitchen, Aunt Marion at the table, the big square glass candy dish filled with Hersey Kisses in the living room.  There is part of me that feels like if I walked into that house today those things, those people would still be there.  I am sure somewhere in Heaven Grandma Audrey and Aunt Marion and Uncle David sat down to Christmas dinner together.  (Truth be told seeing Tom this year almost made me miss Uncle David's Christmas party and watching Kate, Tom and Steve egg him on, "Do you think you can fit the whole cookie in your mouth?" "What rank would Dann be in the Salvation army?" But that's a story for another day.)
Looking back I don't really remember many of the presents I got as a kid, but the traditions and the love that sticks with you.  Christmas is hard to write about...  I could write about presents and Santa, I could write about cookies and sweets and treats. All these things and so much more are Christmas. Christmas is more than presents, more then Santa; Christmas is really about love.  Jackie and Grace, when you think of Christmas I don't care that your remember the toys, I want you to remember the love.  The love your family showed you and the love that God give us.  God saved us all though a baby born in manger and hung on a cross.  God loved you so much he gave you the gift of his son, to bear the weight of our sin, so that we could come home to heaven someday.  Someday we will spend Christmas with those we have loved and lost because we will see them again in heaven because of God's gift of grace through his son.  What a Christmas that will be.