Christmas memories

I hope everyone reading this has had a good Christmas. I figure you are probably wrapped up (pun partially intended) in Christmas Eve activities, so Christmas day has probably passed. I am sitting here typing, because we have finished baking all the pies and cookies, veggie trays are chilling in the fridge, cheese logs and jello salads are just waiting to disappear, and everything has been wrapped, ribboned, placed under the tree ( and I should add), thoroughly inspected, shaken, measured, and re-placed.

SO, first things first!! MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Now, on to some memories. As I was sitting, watching the Christmas Devotional from Salt Lake, I had two treats. First, President Uchtdorf talking about the Christmas traditions of his homeland in Germany. I have shared these traditions with many students, and enjoyed the simple customs myself, so it was fun to hear them recounted. Then when President Eyring spoke, the memories of home came flooding back. I have lots of great memories of our homespun Christmas Nativity pageant, and I guess I was naive to think that only a few families in the Church ever did that.

I can't recall the first memory of our pageant. I just know that it has always been a part of my own Christmas memories. Every Christmas Eve, the family would gather for our big feast. As a kid, I thought this was the coolest thing! We didn't have a big fancy meal (by other people's standards). We had a huge spread of our favorite snack crackers, jello salads, nuts, veggie platters and dip, chips, cookies, homemade cheese logs, etc. We also have our favorite Christmas "wassail", ours being the orange juice based version. (especially good when slurped hot through a broken candy-cane. try this at home, just be patient, it takes a few seconds to get anything past the peppermint)

I don't recall if Mom was pregnant with Janet, Cindy or Kathy when this tradition started, but she was not feeling up to a big meal, and decided that snacks and jello salads were something that she could tackle with the help of the oldest kids. It was such a hit, that it has become our Christmas Eve traditional meal. I'm sure it changed a bit over the years, but ours is still very close to those boyhood meals.

After the big meal, the kids would basically disappear into the bedrooms to prepare for our important part of the Chritstmas celebration. We would hand out roles for the Nativity pageant, which would take place in the front room for our devoted audience of Dad, Mom and Grandma Buckley. I don't remember what part I was given the year I fussed so much about wanting to be one of the "wise-guys". It was probably a shepherd or even a sheep. Costumes were not elaborate, but I must have thought the Jello-mold crowns were pretty cool. We had shepherds in towels and bathrobes (until the year Mom and Dad went to Israel one summer, then they were authentic headwear), wise men (and girls) wore fancier fabrics from Mom's sewing stash, and copper jello-molds, or stainless steel bowls for crowns. Angels were draped in white and garnished with tinsel and garlands. Joseph and Mary were robed simply in old soft blankets, and a doll usually filled the role of Christchild.

We would have our narrator (doubled as the Angel of the Lord, usually) read out of Luke chapter 2. The narration was sprinkled with appropriately placed Christmas hymns, and some more secular (although still appropriate) christmas songs, sung by Dad and Mom's own little (but growing) choir of "angels". We added key parts of the story as outlined in Matthew ch. 1, and always included key events taking place in this hemisphere, as given in 3 Nephi ch. 1.

I remember doing the nativity twice the year Tyler and Garret were born, so that each of them could be the Christchild. Tyler and Garrett just got home from missions! Michelle and I played the roles of Mary and Joseph with Justin as the baby Jesus when he was 4 weeks old. (can you believe he is 19 and getting ready to go on a mission??)

It was a beautiful way to remember the real reason we celebrate this season, and it gave me a great appreciation of the humble beginnings of our Savior's life. I have always felt that my family traditions have helped establish a firm foundation in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I can only hope that I pass these same tradtions on to my own children, and maybe, through sharing, others may come to a better relationship with their Savior as well.

May you all have a truly blessed Christmas season, and a joyous and prosperous 2009!!