It's three days to Christmas and an Arctic front has hit. Temperatures are plunging as freezing rain falls in advance of snow. Record cold is predicted with wind chills as low as in the minus 40's for the next few days.
I'm staying home, reading, writing, and maybe watching a movie or two.
But since it's almost Christmas, that's on my mind. This year is hard - it's the first without my mom who died at the end of May. Christmas was also her birthday so it's a double whammy.
But I still experience the joy of the season.
Here's a little story about a gift from my grandparents long ago, one I will never forget!
As a child, anticipating Christmas was a big deal. Although we didn’t put up a tree or decorate until mid-December, I prepared in advance by pouring over the pages of the Sears or JC Penney’s Christmas catalog for weeks, dreaming and wishing for some of the toys in those pages.
When I was eight, I longed for a new bike. I had outgrown the small sidewalk bike that my cousin Tom bought me at a yard sale, the bike that he and his sister taught me to ride with great patience. As Christmas approached, a bike topped my wish list but, on the day, despite a variety of gifts under the tree, there was no bicycle.
Although I got the coat – a blue floral print parka with a fur trimmed hood – I had wanted along with other items like Mystery Date, the lack of a bike disappointed me.
My Pop, who used his trusty Barlow knife to help cut ribbons and open packages every Christmas, consoled me and promised I would receive a bike next Christmas, when he said I would be big enough for the 26-inch model I coveted.
Since life has a way of throwing the unexpected at us, he died in February and so I thought my chance of a bike had ended with my grandfather’s death. My mom wasn’t thrilled about the idea of a bike since we lived on a busy street a few blocks from the hospital where I was born and one that city buses traveled on their daily rounds.
I almost didn’t hope but being a kid, I hoped a little that there would be a bicycle under the tree come Christmas morning. Granny spent the night with us that year, so she was present when we made our wild dash down the front stairs to see what gifts we’d received.
Midway down, I thought I saw – through a hallway and two rooms – the flash of handlebars and I whooped, picking up speed as I ran into the living room. A pair of bikes, one pink, one blue sat before the Christmas tree, each with a tag which read “From Granny and Pop.” Before I tore away that tag, my dad asked me if I’d read and understood, which I did.
Granny kept her husband’s promise. I became the happy owner of a pink Columbia bicycle complete with a white basket trimmed with flowers and a silver seat. My toes had to struggle to reach the pedals but eventually I mastered it and rode many a happy mile on that bike. I still have it, tucked away in a corner of my garage.
That bike represents more to me than a pleasant childhood memory. It stands for the love of my grandparents, for dreams that sometimes come true, and the world I knew as a child.
Love is the true gift of Christmas because God so loved the world, He sent His only Son to bring salvation and light to illuminate the darkness of this world.
Even in 2022, in a year that has been as dark in many ways as any I have known, the love of Christ remains a shining light in our lives.
My memories have grown more precious as the years pass, as the familiar faces who filled my childhood with their love have gone and new faces have come into my life. As I mark the second Christmas without my husband, I still rejoice that I had him at all and that together we made three beautiful children.
From my house and heart to yours, I wish you the joy of Christmas, the light of love and the chance to make memories to keep.
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