Christmas memories

Christmas has always been a special time for my family and I.
Looking back on the memories I smile at the little things that made each one special, somehow through adversity and poverty, every Christmas we scraped up enough to be together and to be jolly.

The picture of bob Cratchit coming home to that crammed and impoverished home that was rich in joy and thankfulness has a ghostly similitude to our own little home's crammed and lowly enough to resemble any memorable Dickens character's.
Ours was a home not rich in material wealth, what we had was something more wonderful that that. You see we were able to experience Christmas the way it should be. Simple and full of love. presents didn't matter, even though there was always something special under our "tree"We knew it wasn't about those tiny hard earned trinkets. But the blessings of being healthy and together. We were able to wholly focus on the greatest gift given to mankind. A Savior which is Christ the Lord.
I look back on the earliest ones I can remember, and there is a hazy sort of charm over those earliest of Christmas memories for me. And it wasn't Because of lights on the tree, it wasn't the shiny wrapped boxes, it wasn't the feast that took ages to prepare. (which back then we were hardly able to afford)
It was a smiling mother who rallied her troop's of little hands to the call of cheer and delight. Who out of necessity used every imaginable part of her brain to create some grand decor, even if it meant pinning sheets up on the blanketed windows, (we didn't have heat)  to look like curtains. and pulling every imaginable gift that the 60 acres we lived on provided, to create an atmosphere of Christmas.
And my sisters her two right hand sergeants, who were at the ready to charge and tackle any task. The eldest usually money, working jobs here and there and the younger with her; usually the younger would dream up some feast out of the simplest of ingredient's, and all three of them would be in the tiny kitchen cooking and singing carols. And my brothers who would always be cooking up some sort of mischief of happy playful hours to fill up the time we waited for the big day when everything would come together.
We never knew we had so little we were a band of jolly children with a mother who stood by and watched her chickens with joy and many a prayer for us all. Who kept us closely tied with her love and childlike faith.
Even though we are far better off now, the lessons are still the same.
Its the simplest of gifts that make a christmas great. Its not getting some grand present that you will remember, but the ones who you shared days and nights with in laughter and coziness.
Remember this in the next two days, cherish every moment spent with someone you love, for those are the ones worth storing up for someday.
Be thankful for the ones you hold dear, but be most grateful that they are near.

 Wishing you all my lovely followers a happy and lovely amazingly blessed Christmas.
Amid all the busy wonderfulness and the seasonal shenanigans lets try and remember why we celebrate.