What I Want for My Kids At Christmas

Yesterday, my aunt posted a TBT (Throwback Thursday) picture. From many years ago, on Christmas night at my grandparents’ house.

Those nights were magical, in every sense of the word. It was like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting – Mom Mom was a master pianist, and just humming a song for her for 2 seconds, she could make it sound like Mozart on the first try. We’re a family of singers (I did NOT get this gene, however – couldn’t carry a note if my life depended on it;), and everyone would gather around her on the piano, singing their hearts out in that packed house. I’d run around with my cousins, and extended family I didn’t see except on Christmas night. It was my favorite night of the whole year.

When I saw this picture pop up in my Facebook newsfeed, my eyes teared up and I felt overcome with…I’m not sure exactly what. Some combination of joy, happiness, and an overwhelming feeling of the love in that house and how blessed I am to have these memories. Missing that time where everything was just perfect in my little world, how it felt to be wrapped up in my grandmother’s hugs. That feeling of Christmas magic that only a child can possess. There were a lot of feelings. All landing right in my heart again at the sight of this picture.

My grandparents have now passed, and our families have all grown so big that we no longer meet in one house on Christmas night. But those memories will always be in my heart and I’ll forever be thankful for them.

I hope, I pray, that when my kids are grown, they will come across an old photo of Christmas when they were kids, and feel that indescribable feeling. That warmth in their heart that can’t be forgotten, no matter how much time goes by.

That when they see these photographs, they see God’s work and His love, right there, in that picture. And can feel just how blessed we were…and are.

That when the gifts they unwrapped Christmas morning are long gone, they realize those weren’t really the gifts after all.