Metro Voice asked readers to share their Christmas memories. Below are three of them with links to read the entire stories.
Repetition to Revelation
By Doug Vaughan
I was bored and bothered. That Christmas Eve I read the Nativity story in Luke 2 to our two daughters again just as I had for years. I reasoned there must be more to it than that. God’s Word shouldn’t be dull because its depths can never be plumbed. So, instead of sugar plums dancing in my head, I was awakened in the middle of the night with a spiritual challenge, “Read the story as if it were the first time.”
23 Christmas memories and today’s realities to remember in 2023
By Anne Foley Rauth
Photo: public domain.
Santa in 1973: Looking for your letter to Santa in the hometown newspaper and knowing that Santa would read it only when it was published here and no where else.
- Santa in 2004: Submitting your sons’ letters to Santa to the very same newsletter that would always publish your letter.
- Christmas card in 2004: Crafting the annual family Christmas letter, called the “Rauth Reporter.”
- Christmas card in 2023: Simplifying your life and just sending a family Christmas photo.
Unconventional Answers
By Pamela McMilian
“I know you know!” the seven-year-old insisted.
Snowflakes. Wikimedia.
Large snowflakes melted on the windshield as I drove with my grandson to the pharmacy near our house.
“Pleeease,” he begged. “Just tell me. The kids at school say Santa isn’t real. So, is he or not?”
The boy’s blue eyes searched my face for some hint of an answer. I remained silent. His mom had passed away in December the year before. I thought of her when she was his age with those same blue eyes. I had three little ones then and no money for Christmas presents. My heart still ached at the memory of how I answered this same question those many years ago. There was no way I would disappoint her son with a quick answer.
All three readers are members of the Heart of America Christian Writers Network and we thank them for their participation.
–Dwight Widaman, editor
Photo: Bronners 38. Wikimedia 2.0.
