For all of my childhood Christmas meant a trip to Aunt Jan's house. It was the same every year. I would walk into her house on Christmas eve and it was like walking into a Christmas wonderland. She had a giant tree in every room of her house. Every tree was themed differently. I would explore each room and marvel at the trees. Her main tree, in the living room, always had these lights that were liquid filled and bubbled as they got hot. To a child the light looked "really cool" as it shone through the bubbling colored water. There was more though. The whole house was decorated. There were stockings hung and already bulging with gifts that we couldn't look at yet. There were mountains of desserts and baked goods. My mouth still waters just thinking about cherry tarts, sausage balls, and all of the other goodies.After exploring the house and eating my fill of Christmas food, I would then go outside. I have no way of guessing how many thousands of lights my Aunt Jan strung every year. The whole house was covered. The trees and bushes were lit. The Gazebo was decorated. Santa and the reindeer were on the lawn.
On Christmas morning we had a routine. My Uncle Cecil decreed that there would be breakfast before the presents and so I looked longingly at the piles of gifts beneath the tree (really all over the living room) as we ate breakfast. It wasn't really torture though because breakfast was amazing. We had a full spread in the finest Southern tradition, bacon, eggs, sausages, gravy, biscuits, grits. It probably wasn't very healthy but it sure was good.
After breakfast we moved on to gifts. I have no idea how many people Aunt Jan bought gifts for but she bought all of the children in the family several. I always liked remote control cars and electronic games and I always got something great. Then we opened stockings and they had wonderful things in them.
After gifts we would play the rest of the morning before having an amazing lunch and leaving to visit my mom's family that evening.
Now, I'm a father and a minister so it's my turn to make Christmas happen for my kids and others. I spent weeks arranging to have gifts brought here from the States for my kids. Kelli and I worked for days to prepare our home and the food, The last three days were honestly exhausting. We hosted about 25 people for Christmas lunch (There are a lot of American and European ministry workers floating around the country. They are away from their families and need a place to go. As a way of giving to the community and ministering to other ministers we open our home on both Thanksgiving and Christmas.). During all of the cooking, cleaning, decorating, and gift wrapping, I thought of Aunt Jan and how she worked all those years to make Christmas happen for me.
Aunt Jan died just a few days before Christmas. In one of her last conversations with me, I talked to her about how I remembered Christmases. She brightened when I mentioned it and said, "Jamie, that's how we want to live. We want to live so that people have good memories." My aunt Jan left me with amazing magical memories.
I just hope that I have learned the lessons of hospitality and giving that my Aunt Jan taught. I hope that I can give people the same kinds of magical memories that she gave me.
