Recording Reflections

I love this week between Christmas and New Year’s Day.  I’m not quite ready to say goodbye to Christmas.  It comes and goes so fast, so I leave my decorations up until the end of the week, as I try to enjoy just a little more of that wonderful time.  

This week is also a great time for reflections, both of the past and the future.  Today, let’s talk about Christmases past.   

Wouldn’t you love to read a record today of how your ancestor celebrated Christmas?  If you don’t have such a record, it’s probably because they didn’t leave one. 

You may read about how others celebrated Christmas in Colonial America in these Colonial Christmas Links.  

That leads me to a question:  Are you leaving a legacy for your family?

In an effort to preserve your memories from this year, take some time to record them somehow, whether it’s in a journal, a photo or video story, etc. 

• What was traditional for you?  Were some traditions ones you repeat each year or did you start some new traditions?  We put up outside Christmas lights, decorated a Christmas tree, read the Christmas story from Luke 2, hung our stockings on the fireplace, and remembered the year we’d had a fire in the fireplace, then hung the stockings, Santa filled the stockings with, among other things, crayons, and the heat from the extinguished fire melted the crayons!  New tradition:  We purchased a lighted reindeer that we assembled and put in our front yard. 
• What decorations do bring out each year?  Were any family heirlooms?  My grandmother had a ceramic studio off her garage.  She made ceramic reindeer pulling a sleigh.  I’ve inherited the set and each year it reminds me of her. 
• With whom did you celebrate the holidays?  Name them and, if they are related to you, state how.   This year we had two of our daughters:  (1) Amy and Wade, and their children Nathan, Erica, and TJ, and (2) Sarah and Trevor with Maddie and Michael.   There were eleven of us all together.  The children ranged from age 13 to 2. 
• What did you eat?  Figgy pudding or a Christmas goose?  We ate ham, baked potatoes, green bean casserole (a tradition), Waldorf Salad without nuts because of a food allergy, rolls, and cherry cheesecake.
• Who cooked?  Bruce was the head chef.  He cooked for so many years at the fire station and is such an expert at it, that I’m happy to serve as the assistant chef. 
• Where did you celebrate?  We had the family come to our home in Lehi on Christmas Day.  For Christmas Eve, we went to Sarah’s home where she had cooked a turkey dinner with stuffing, vegetables, mashed potatoes, gravy, and rolls.  Yummm!
• What was different about this year?  We didn’t have any children at home to wake us early Christmas morning.  

Your family may thank you some day for painting this picture for them!