What Will Your Children Remember?

The holidays are a busy time of year especially for parents. You plan extra meals, fantastic gatherings of family and friends, and quest for just the right gifts to satisfaction your children. It's all a lot of work and so it's absorbing to reconsider what your children will remember a year from now.

A mom recently told me that she was busily pondering the gifts she should buy for her two grade school children. Trying to find meaningful gifts, she decided to ask them what they could remember receiving last year for Christmas. Neither one could remember a single gift they received. Here she put so much time into looking just the right gifts and only a year later they don't even remember them!

Snowflake Ornament

Well then what do they remember? What do you remember from your childhood holidays?

Family Rituals that generate Memories

I also don't remember many gifts from my childhood. What I do remember is going to church on Christmas Eve at midnight. It was a big deal to stay up so late. We'd open our gifts before going to church (of procedure Santa would be coming the next morning so there was still great hope over that!).

We'd arrive home from church after 1:00 Am. When we got home, we'd change into our pajamas and meet in the kitchen. We could then eat as many Christmas cookies as we wanted - much to my delight! My Dad would open a bottle of Blackberry Manischewitz; it was a very extra treat to enjoy the sweet wine in the fancy glasses.

Special habitancy Add to the Memories

What could perhaps be great than Christmas? For me it was Christmas when my Grandma and Aunt travelled by train or bus from Grand Forks, North Dakota to join us in Minneapolis for the holidays.

All the grandchildren loved being with Grandma. She was so very curious in all things going on in our lives. She asked questions... Not nosy questions but questions to understand all the fantastic things that were happening for us.

Grandma favorite us just the way we were and that was a true gift. She was so much fun to be with - at the holidays or whenever! She liked playing games, knitting slippers, manufacture cookies and creating pizza parties for us.

She shared a one bedroom apartment at the top of an old house with my aunt. My parents, my two brothers and I stayed a estimate of days with her when we'd visit. looking back, I wonder how spending a few days in a one bedroom apartment with one bathroom brought us so much joy. It was by all means; of course Grandma's love that made it so special.

Memories of Love Live On

My Grandma died 16 years ago and I often think of her. It might be when I'm snuggling under one of the quilts she made or knitting the same type of slippers she used to knit. Thoughts of her bring warm, happy feelings.

Last weekend I was buying my Mom's popular sour cherry ball candy to send in her Christmas package. The lady who was checking me out told me I just needed to buy about 5 more balls and I'd get a free ornament. She was so enthused about this ornamentation that I agreed and added 5 more. Oops... Not quite enough. One more... Still not enough... One more and then one more. Finally the bag weighed a pound and the ornamentation was mine!

She handed me a fancy pewter ornamentation shaped like a snowflake. In the town on both sides is engraved "Granddaughters are a blessing". It literally is nice but I don't have any grandchildren yet so I wondered what I would do with it. And then I remembered that I am a granddaughter; the granddaughter of a most considerable Grandma.

So this ornamentation became the first one to be hung on our Christmas tree. It's a extra reminder of my Grandma and the strangeness and miracle of the holidays.

What will your children remember?

It seems that the magic of the holidays are remembered primarily in the time we spend together with those we love. While the gifts are an prominent part, it's your family's holiday rituals that your children will remember the longest.

May your family enjoy many warm and fantastic times together this holiday season!

What Will Your Children Remember?