CHRISTMASTIME IN TEXAS

"Chocolate Covered Cherries"

Today in Walgreens, while waiting for a prescription, my husband and I strolled toward a row of chairs to wait. Dividing the row in half sat a table filled with bright red boxes of "Chocolate Covered Cherries"--A gift for a loved one. Chocolate Covered Cherries? Remember those? The chocolate was good, but not spectacular, and when you bit into one, the cherry juice ran out. Oh, the cherry is good, too, but all in all...it's a messy experience. Still, I remembered a boy in 8th grade who gave me a box of Chocolate Covered Cherries, and my husband said he recalled buying a box for his mother one year he was in high school. Good, messy, or not...they do bring back sweet memories.

"The Perfect Decoration"

Do families still decorate their Christmas tree with silvery icicles? This decoration is the most fun, the most controversial, and the most baffling of all. Grab a bunch and throw them on the tree? Or take painstaking care in separating them one by one and placing them exactly where you want? My younger sister like to throw bunches. I preferred placing single ones carefully in specific rows. We ended up with a half-and-half tree. Her side--covered in messy clumps--in my opinion--and my side? Covered in beautiful single strands perfectly placed.

"Trivial Pursuit"

When children become teenagers, Christmas morning doesn't hold the thrill and excitement as when they were young. Our little family preferred Christmas in our own home, so the four of us had leisurely Christmas Days. When our daughter was a junior and our son was a freshman, Christmas morning was cold and wet. My husband built up the fire, and we sat on the floor in front of it to open presents.

I'd bought a Trivial Pursuit game for our son. When he unwrapped it, he cleared a space on the rug and set up the game. "Want to play, Mom?" He asked his sister, too, and his dad. But Dad doesn't play games. So the three of us sat in our pajamas and began to play. After an hour or so, I suggested breakfast--my special Christmas breakfast of sausage patties and pecan waffles. "Uh-uh," they said, "let's just eat Pop-Tarts so we can keep playing." We did. At noon, same thing. "Let's just snack on crackers and cheese or something." The game we had going was hot and tense.

At twelve, I called time out so we could all dress and brush our teeth. Then, right back to the game. By four in the afternoon, I had a horrible thought. I'd forgotten to thaw my turkey and bake cornbread for the stuffing and make fruit salad! We could not have our traditional dinner.

But the kids said, "We don't really like all that stuff anyway. Why don't we just have nachos?"
For the remaining years we had children at home, this was our pattern. Even when they came home for Christmas, nachos were always ready.

P.S. Our ninth grade son won every game.
~*~
Nothing really matters at all on Christmas, except that we love each other and give whatever gift we have.
It is, after all, the birthday of the Christ Child, and He brought all we need.

I wish you all a happy Christmas season,

the Birthday of the King, and love and happiness among us all.

Celia Yeary

omance...and a little bit of Texas