Advent Calendar - December 24 - Christmas Eve

How did you, your family or your ancestors spend Christmas Eve?
These are the memories that I treasure most!

As I’ve written before, Daddy was gone all but for a very few Christmas’ as I was growing up, so Mama tended to treat my sister and I all the more grown up. I think to partly ease her own loneliness with him gone, and partly to make us feel that we weren’t missing out what other children had growing up; their Daddy at home all the time.

And so, on Christmas Eve, Mama, my sister and I would gather together in the living room [which was considered off-limits the except on special occasions]. There, when we were very small, Mama would take up the family Bible, which she always had opened during the Christmas season to Luke chapter 2 [take a moment and read that if you are not familiar with it!], and there she would read us the very first Christmas story. As we grew older, she would us read it to her. Reading Luke chapter 2 on Christmas Eve has become a tradition for me.

Afterwards, we would sit and sing Christmas carols. Singing every one we knew at least once, and most twice or even three times! Mama used to say she couldn’t carry a tune, but how I loved to hear her sing!

After the carols, we would drink eggnog and eat fruitcake. To me, Christmas isn’t Christmas until I’ve had my eggnog and fruitcake!

This year, on Christmas Eve, I don’t know if anyone will be here with me or not. My dh is a truck driver, and I have no idea when he will be coming in, but you can bet that I will be sitting here, and I will read aloud Luke’s rendition of our Savior’s birth. Then I’ll sing my heart out! And afterward I will pour myself a cup of eggnog and have a slice of fruitcake.

And so, I raise my cup to you, dear ones who are reading this!

To this Christmas and to many more
With yuletide cheer and bright décor
I raise my cup with Christmas toast
Because it’s you I cherish the most
May your Christmas be filled with cheer
And may it last through the whole coming year!

Merry Christmas!
from
Cyndi Beane Henry
The Texicanwife