Memories

I love Christmas.  I know a lot of people don't...and yes, it is commercialized, etc, but I still love it.  Perhaps it's because Christmas was a magical time when I was growing up. Grandma made the best sugar cookies and you couldn't eat too many.  Mama Jig took us shopping with her (the only time she went grocery shopping) for the ingredients for fruit cake.  We didn't really eat it, but it was still fun to watch her make it!  I know we didn't have a ton of money, but Mama and Daddy always made Christmas a time for miraculous gifts to appear under afghans and old quilts.  How we never saw them behind the couch, I will never know!  Jamie would come in and wake me up first and then we would drag Bethany out of the bed to see that "He came, Melodie!  He came!"  Shhhh...we can't wake Mama and Daddy up yet...so we sat in darkness by the Christmas tree.  On Christmas Eve we caroled to people in our church and opened gifts from each other.  My parents gave us money to buy a gift for our siblings and that was one of our favorite parts of Christmas.  Crab stew and broccoli cornbread on Christmas Eve...I'm telling you, my parents aren't perfect, but they did a jam up job of making life special, Christmas time and other times as well.

I'm going to miss them this year.  I'm not going to pretend like it won't be hard to be away from my family when we have so many memories and traditions together.  But, there's something about being away that simultaneously makes me appreciate them even more and be incredibly grateful for my family here.  I have a boyfriend who loves me in a way I can't even grasp.  I have his family who has adopted me and treats me like I've always been a part of their family.  I have friends who are family here in Jeff City.  I am loved and that is plenty.

We are making new memories and traditions.  The past impacts the future.  Because I have been loved well I can now love well.  It's a gift I have been given and now I can share it with others.
Let's make some memories together!