christmas

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

and wild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!

My favorite Christmas song is “I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the most famous poet of the 19th century, was inspired to write the poem we know now, the Christmas Carol, on Christmas day in 1863.

Two years earlier, he had lost his wife of 18 years. She had been sealing envelopes with hot wax when a flame caught...

My favorite memories are the smell of oranges, the crackling sound from our fireplace, and the sight of candy-striped material on my mother’s sewing room floor.

Christmas was the only time we had oranges. Their nostalgic sweet, citrus smell still stirs up memories for me, irrespective of the time of year.

When we lived in South Texas, I loved it when it was time to go to the orange grove to pick oranges. I could hardly wait until we’d get into the car and begin to peel the skins off while the sweet, sticky juice ra...

Dear Santa

“Before you get too busy with all the gift lists, we need your help. We will ask you for a special gift.

We have a friend. He is an Native Indian. He went to fight in the war, in a nation called Vietnam. He's a very tall man, long hair, skinny and dark like some of us Latinos.

Tom does not speak Spanish. He speaks Indian and English, but he is a nice man.

Our friend's name is Tom. Now that he's a little more sick, he went to see his family in Arkansas. But we know you can find him.

...

As I watched the second candle (the candle of Peace) of the Advent season lit in church on Sunday, I thought about a fork my friend gave me to start the Christmas season.

It was something no one had ever given me- a silverware set, but not just one fork. However, with the dainty fork that I could wear as a pendant, she gave me a beautiful story to go with it.

It seems a woman had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and was given three months to live. As she was “getting her affairs in order,” she contacted her pa...

“I don’t know what happened,” she said. Suddenly I had this entire white wall as my canvas and a palette of colors to play with. I lost track of time and let my imagination go wild.”

It started as an artistic effort to paint a small mural of flowers on a little girl’s wall. However, my daughter said when she stepped out of our granddaughter’s room two hours later, there was an entire garden scene, complete with an apple tree, sunflowers, and a furry little bunny sitting beneath it all.

My husband and I were sitting in a Burger King, having lunch, when a lady approached us and asked, "Sir, would you mind coming into the playroom with our children?" We looked up at her and back towards the room where about 20 little children's faces were pressed against the glass looking our way. "The children think you are Santa Claus," the lady said.

My husband had a white beard and was wearing a Santa hat and a red shirt. He smiled and said, "Sure!" And off he went with a big smile and a little bounce in his step.

He...

There was a quiet sadness that filled the room. Each mother there shared a remarkable memory of her child. It was a comfortable place to be because it was all right to cry.

My friend had invited me to join her in a chapel with a group of mothers. They gathered each Christmas to share memories of their children who had passed away.

Warm, inviting hands reached out for mine as I entered the group. I listened as they shared stories of their children. It had been a long time for some since they had held the warm hands of their chil...

It was small, about 2 ½ feet high, with green branches and a different color fiber optic light at each thistle’s end. It sat in a window of our house that faced the street on a small table I found in Mexico. The tiny twinkly lights were constantly changing, and it became a brilliant display every evening as darkness arrived. But, humble as it was, it represented Christmas for us.

Of course, our children were not that impressed with our little artificial tree. They grew up with the smell of pine saturating the house each ...

How do you pick a Christmas gift for someone who only has a few days or weeks to live? That’s the dilemma I had when I received the news that my brother, Gerald, was in stage four brain cancer. He had one last request–to celebrate Christmas with all his brothers and sisters.

He knew this would be the last time our family would be with him. He asked my sister to take him to the mall in a wheelchair and help him pick out gifts for each of us.

Hospice, a unique nursing service focused on terminally ill patients...

We always pretended to be asleep. It was a game we played with our dad on Christmas Eve. He told us he couldn’t signal for Santa until we were sound asleep in our beds.

As soon as he announced it was time to go to bed, we would run to our rooms, change into pajamas and jump into bed to wait for him to come to say goodnight.

He’d lean down close to our faces to see if our eyes were closed. Sometimes I could feel his scratchy beard brush against my cheek. Finally, he turned his face sideways to listen to our b...

If you are making a list and checking it twice, I think I may have found a children’s movie that may help you fill your Christmas list very simply.

“The Very Monkey Christmas.” It is a Christmastime story about a problem, Curious George and The Man with the Yellow Hat. They must both find out what each other wants for Christmas.

Curious George is an American animated educational children’s television series based on the children’s book series of the same name from 2006-2015.

In this...

Twas the night before Christmas, and everything was going wrong. There was no heat to warm the small trailer where we lived. That was because the butane tank that held the gas was empty.

We called the gas company, but they refused to come out on holiday to fill the tank, even though the temperature would only reach 15 degrees. My husband’s job had brought us to the small Georgia town. He was the new pastor of a small missionary church.

It was so cold in the trailer that the children had to wear their coats and glo...

Recently I heard a beautiful song called “Is There Room.” It made me think of a time when we were invited to a friend’s home in south Texas to share in their family’s Christmas Posada.

Posada is the Spanish word for “inn,” and the Posadas Navideñas recalls the events leading up to the Nativity of Jesus. Las Posadas is a nine-day religious festival celebrated throughout Mexico. It begins on December 16 and ends on Christmas Eve.

It is a way Christian families commemorate Joseph and Mary’...