2005 Soap Box Archives

A Twin Pines Christmas 12/16/05

About the only chance I get to have a fire in the fireplace is during Christmastime and I take great delight in striking a match to a pile of seasoned oak wood. I build the kind of fire that rips and roars and crackles and adds to the ambiance of good cheer and homecoming.

We decorate four Christmas trees every year, the big traditional tree in the den, the angel tree in the parlor, a musical tree with little instruments hanging on it and a special ornament tree with the unique decorations we’ve collected through the years.

The smells that come out of Hazel’s kitchen are enough to make your tongue slap your eyeballs out, and we all know that calories don’t count at Christmastime, and needless to say, I acquit myself admirably at the table.

Red is my very favorite color and there’s an abundance of red during the Christmas season and big red candles set on the mantle piece and hearth add an old time sort of feeling to the festivities.

We always light the cross that stands at the top of the hill coming up to the house and our neighbor Tom adorns his whole front yard with multicolored Christmas lights and it’s a sight to see.

There’s always a good little nip in the air and the sky is as clear as country well water and the stars look like diamond chips hanging in a cold dark sky. The evergreen trees bend in a cold winter wind and you can see your breath in the air and it just makes you glad to be alive.

We always have family and friends over on Christmas Eve night. We eat and drink and make merry and just enjoy each other’s company and as the evening winds down I sit in my chair with a copy of a story I wrote many years ago and a King James Bible.

I read “A Carolina Christmas Carol” and then turn to Luke’s version of “The Christmas Story,” the classic old phrases that
speak of a special star that shown down on shepherds keeping watch over their livestock, angels filling the night with music and the shepherds journeying to Bethlehem to see the newborn child who would change the world.

Then I go around the room letting each individual say whatever
they want to say, giving everybody a chance to reveal what they’re feeling in their hearts and it’s so good to be among family and friends on this blessed night.

Christmas at Twin Pines Ranch is such a joy to me. I thank God for this little piece of Tennessee my family has called home for 26 years. I just can’t imagine spending Christmas anywhere else. It’s a feeling like no other, a feeling like the work’s all done and the tools are all put up and it’s time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

And right here I want to remember the men and women who will not be spending Christmas with their families this year. Men and women who defend and protect this nation, who hold the line and make the sacrifices so that America and Americans can be free.

It is my prayer that some day soon they will be back home with their families on Christmas.

I will never wish you merry Xmas or Happy Holidays or any of that other politically correct junk. But I do want to wish you a very Merry Christmas and let’s all try to remember what Christmas is all about.

It commemorates the night the virgin born Son of Almighty God came into this world to take away the sins of mankind.

Hosanna to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will.

Pray for our troops.

What do you think?

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels

 

©Copyright The Charlie Daniels Band