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| I am almost five years old here, Judy is three. We got wooden horses that year for Christmas...Judy's was a rocking horse, mine was on a spring. I rode the spring out of that horse. We are wearing green chenille robes that Mamma made for us out of an old bedspread. I guess the tree was up on the table to keep our hands off of it. This was taken in our home on Malcolm Street. |
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| ~~ Judy and I....Christmas, 1949 ~~ |
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| It is said that all hearts come home for Christmas. I think this is true, because I know mine always returns to the Christmases of my childhood. How precious those memories become as I get older, especially now that Mamma and Daddy have gone on. Let me share with you some of them... I remember buying our tree each year at the A & P Supermarket on Greenwood Rd. Daddy would set it up in the living room in the corner, carefully positioning the sparse side to the wall, and string it with those big red, green and blue lights, the kind no one uses anymore. You couldn't touch them for very long or they would burn your fingers. |
| Mamma would get down the decorations from the top of the hall closet and Judy and I would put on the ornaments, the smallest ones at the top, the larger toward the bottom, and because Daddy was so tall, he placed the star at the very top and hung the silver icycles so they would "drape" just right. We used the same ornaments year after year, until when we were grown, those chipped and faded pieces of tin had become like dear friends. And each year we would stand back, admire our efforts, and declare that this was the "best tree ever!" Mamma told us one time that when she was a little girl, she and her friends would go caroling in their small English village, and they would end by singing ..."Christmas is coming, the pigs are getting fat; please put a penny in the old man's hat. If you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do; if you haven't got a ha'penny, then God bless you." Judy and I thought this was a great way to make a little extra money, so we would go door-to-door on our block with cups in hand and sing a carol at each neighbor's house, with the request to "please put a penny in the old man's hat". I often wonder now if, seeing us approach, the neighbors didn't warn one another, "Don't answer the door, Ethyl...it's those strange Clarke girls again, begging for money." We never got very much, come to think about it. We didn't have a mantle to hang stockings on - just a space heater and floor furnace - so Daddy put our stockings at the foot of our bed early Christmas morning. And they weren't real stockings, just a pair of his socks, stuffed with nuts and candy and the usual apple or orange. We would wake up off and on during the night and feel at the end of our beds for those stockings...if they were there, we knew that Santa had come. How wonderful it would be to go back in time and experience one of those Christmases again! |
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| ...And His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace Isaiah 9:6 |
| Whatever else be lost throughout the years, let us keep Christmas still a shining thing. Whatever doubts assail us, or what fears, let us hold close one day, remembering it's poignant meaning for the hearts of men. Let us get back our childlike faith again. Grace Noll Crowell |
| A deep hush falls... the stir and bustle stop... in the great cities cathedrals lift their spires to the skies and in the little towns the bells ring out from country churches. Christmas has come at last, bundled in light, promising peace, glowing with joy. May your holidays be filled with love. |
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| Humble stable in the night, beneath the great star's glowing light - perfect place for a lamb to be born, inside those walls, secure and warm; and wrapped in swaddling clothes He lay upon a manger filled with hay. The shepherds heard the angels sing and came to worship Christ the King. Did you ever wonder why God would have had Jesus make His earthly debut in a humble stable? He was the King of Kings, the Son of the Most High God, the Creator of the universe. But He was also the spotless Lamb of God, born to take away the sins of the world. And a stable was the perfect place for a lamb to be born. Humanity would never see Him crowned King with their eyes while He was on earth, but they would know His majesty in their hearts as they accepted Him as Lord and Savior. It is important that we don't leave Jesus in that manger for the rest of the year...He did not stay there. John saw Him on the Isle of Patmos girded in white rainment, with white hair and flaming eyes, and a voice like the sound of many waters, and He shone brighter than the sun. This is the way satan sees Him, and he trembles. Because Jesus defeated satan and sin and death, He gave us the ability to walk each day in victory over whatever circumstances come our way, and then, when we leave this world, to live forevermore eternally with Him in Heaven. He is the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world, giving His life willingly in order to bring us back into a right relationship with God. Halleluia!! O come let us adore Him...Christ the Lord!! |
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| Merry Christmas and a blessed coming New Year to you and yours from Patti Travers! ~~ Christmas, 2008 ~~ |
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| MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM AIMEE AND WILLIAM JACKSON, GRAND- CHILDREN OF PATTI TRAVERS |
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| "I WAS AMAZED" I was amazed when I first saw the cross not with my eyes, but with my heart and realized it was not nails that held You to that tree; Instead it was amazing grace for lost humanity. And I wept, because it was my sin that formed each nail that was driven in... and yet, it was for me that You endured it; for unworthy as I was, You deemed me worth it. I was amazed. |
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| MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB |