Favorite Things

Christmas Time

Favorite Christmas Songs:
So This Is Christmas
All I want for Christmas is You
Baby It's Cold Outside
Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy--Bing Crosby/David Bowie
O Holy Night
Carol of the Bells
Wizards in Winter

Favorite Christmas Tradition:
Serving breakfast in bed. Opening presents one at a time. String caroling.

Favorite Christmas Gift:
A box of stones. Mom and Dad couldn't afford much that year. They gave a each a box of stones. Each stone represented an aspect of the Christian life. It actually started the idea for the memorial stones that I keep now.

Favorite Part of the Christmas Story:
Luke 2:25-35
And behold there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon...and it was revealed to him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ...and he took him up in his arms...and said...mine eyes have seen thy salvation...a light to lighten the Gentiles.

Most Unusual Christmas:
The Christmases spent in Africa where wishing for a white Christmas took on a whole new meaning, where "I'll be home for Christmas" was banned from every repertoire, where we planned to decorate palm trees, but never did, where we opened a canned ham as a special treat to celebrate, where we sat in church for six hours to watch the African's reenactment of the nativity, where we never hung lights because of a cultural association with the local bars, where our favorite gift was a candy bar.

Most Remembered Christmas:
The year we spent in France. We had an itty-bitty tree that Dad cut down. We made ornaments covering shapes cut from cereal boxes with tin foil. It was the only year we had real mistletoe-not the plastic substitute. It smelled horrible. We strung popcorn and when Christmas was over, we hung the popcorn from the balcony. All these birds came. We invited a Chinese friend to celebrate with us and ate Christmas dinner with chopsticks.

What are yours?