[12/26/11] Monday Memories: My favorite Christmas tradition.

We started my favorite Christmas tradition when Zach was two. I took the idea from one of my college roommates.  Every Christmas Eve we tell the story of Christ's birth from Luke 2. When the kids were younger we dressed up and acted it out. We haven't had much success getting them to dress up and act it out for a few years now, so we just take turns reading the story from the scriptures.

Then we do our gifts to Jesus for the coming year.  The Lord gives us so much, everything really, that we take the time to write down a few things that we want to do the upcoming year as our gift to Him. Then we put our "gifts" in this little box and it sits on one of our sofa tables throughout the year as a reminder.  We've been using this same box since Zach was two. It's survived four children and many moves.

I could kick myself for not saving these "gifts" each year, especially the ones from when the kids were little. Some of the ones I remember are: 

"I'll try harder to be nicer to my sister." 

"I'll try harder to pick up my room." 

"I'll try harder to read my scriptures and say my prayers every day."

I have found, through the years, that I sometimes write down the same "gifts" year after year. I guess I'm still a work in progress, and that's okay.

Christmas 2007 was the first Christmas Zach wouldn't be home for Christmas -- he was serving his mission in Greece.  And although I was sad about this, there wasn't anywhere else I'd have wanted him to be.

Zach had sent his "gift" from the MTC for us to add to the box on Christmas Eve, and I was so happy that he'd remembered our famiy tradition.

I did really good with him being gone until we sat down on Christmas Eve to do our gifts for Jesus.  Then it all hit and I really, really missed him. 

Everyone always writes their name on their "gifts," and we pass them out and everyone reads theirs, either to themselves or to everyone, before writing down their new "gifts."

John was handing them out to everyone and came to Zach's from the previous Christmas. This is what it said:

John handed it to me, I opened it, and this is what it said toward the bottom:

"I love you Mom! I'm thinking of you even though I'm not there."

Ummm....I kinda' lost it at that point.

My son had known, a whole year before, that his mom would be having a bit of a hard time the next Christmas with him being gone.

So he left me a message of great comfort.

A tender mercy, for sure. A huge tender mercy.

I still have this little gift -- I keep it in my scriptures.

I don't think Zach knew that he'd be giving two "gifts" that next Christmas during our simple Christmas tradition. 

One to the Lord.

And one to his mom.