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2000 Soap Box Archives Christmas Thoughts Shortly after I've digested the Thanksgiving turkey and dressing and football games my thoughts start to stray toward my very favorite season of the year. The time of the year when we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, Christmas. There are so many things which I love about Christmas that I couldn’t possibly name them all but I thought I'd put a few down. A fire in the fireplace and the smell of hardwood smoke. A Christmas tree loaded with shiny ornaments and just about as many bright colored lights as it can hold. The cooking aromas coming out of Hazel’s kitchen. Little kids coming down the stairs in soft down pajamas wiping the sleep from their eyes . Downtown Christmas decorations and the solitary beauty of a tree standing alone in someone’s yard. Chestnuts Roasting, Silent Night, White Christmas and Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. Heavy coats, gloves and mufflers and seeing my breath in the air. Christmas carolers and department store Santa Clauses Hearing someone say Merry Christmas Watching a year old child open a package, more interested in the wrapping paper than what’s inside it. Cold silver moonlight shining through bare trees Hot chocolate, eggnog and those little chicken salad sandwiches we always have before Christmas. Our employees’ Christmas party where Santa Claus passes out gifts to about forty children. Calling all my employee’s mothers on Christmas Eve day, something I've been doing for well over twenty years. Friends calling on the telephone just to wish you a Merry Christmas. Hearing about good things happening to needy people. Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and my very favorite, the Allister Sims version of A Dickens Christmas Carol Holding Hazel’s hand as we walk around and look at the decorations in our house. Reading St. Luke’s Christmas story and a story I wrote to the friends and loved ones who gather at our house every Christmas Eve night. Watching the Midnight Mass from St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Green wreathes with red ribbons, kind words, smiles and hugs, and children, children, children. Knowing that the creator of the universe loves us enough to let his only son leave the unspeakable splendor of Heaven and the company of saints and angels and come to earth to be born in the humblest of circumstances in a barn in the company of barnyard animals. To remember that once we get past the glitz and sparkle of Christmas that we are celebrating the greatest gift of all, Jesus Christ. What do you think? God
Bless America
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