24 Christmas Memories – 7

Welcome to day 7 of this year’s walk down Christmas Memory Lane!

If you’re stopping in for the first time, you can get caught up by starting back on day 1 to understand this year’s theme, otherwise…

After time spent in Europe, a Canadian Christmas tree memory, and yesterday’s stop in Saint John, today, it’s back to McKee’s…

A Favourite Family Photo

The photo above ranks high among my all-time favourite family photos. It was taken on January 30th, 2007, but it figured prominently on the Christmas card that we sent to friends and family in the lead-up to Christmas 2008.

We’d been at my parents for the holidays and some freshly fallen snow the night before, and a bright albeit cloudy day seemed like the perfect opportunity to grab a family picture.

Those snow-laden boughs typify Canadian winter and eastern Canada, where I grew up on the edge of the forest. It couldn’t have been all that cold, because trust me… Liz would not be out without a scarf & jacket if it had been. 😅

These jam-filled, cut-out cookies were just an example of some of the Christmas baking that Liz engaged in. She would likely tell you that she didn’t do all that much because she also worked full time back then. That “not all that much”, however, was likely her comparing herself to memories of her mom would was like an Energizer Bunny around the home and in the kitchen.

Trust me when I say… she’s found her inner Energizer Bunny!

Christmas Eve Pyjamas

Finally… a Christmas memory that has only faded in recent years as the kids have stopped growing as rapidly: Christmas Even Pyjamas.

For many years, the kids got to open one gift on Christmas Eve, and it was always new pyjamas. “Not all that fun!” you might say, but it became such a well-rooted tradition that they were perfectly content with it and looked forward to snuggling up in them and enjoying whatever else we might be doing together.

“The Children’s Place” got a lot of our hard-earned cash…
(they’re wearing Children’s Place jammies in that photo).

Grateful

I’m grateful for snow-laden boughs, Christmas pyjamas and Christmas baking, but more than that… it’s the memories for which they were but the backdrop: time spent with family!

“But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”
Joshua 24:15

… and speaking of family,