So I’m a little late with this week’s Top 2 Tuesday post but better late than never, right?  I mean, after all, it’s the thought that counts.  Best intentions and all….I could go on like this forever.

Moving on.

This week’s top 2 Tuesday is favorite Christmas memories which is hard because I have been blessed with a lot of wonderful Christmas memories (and that’s something I need to remember more often).

My first is from my growing up years in the Granite Capitol.  My home church has a Christmas Eve candlelight service every year and we always went.  I remember being a child on the pew between my fidgity brother and squirmy sister who always managed to settle down just as the flames began to glow all around the sanctuary and Tom Wilhite sang “Sweet Little Jesus Boy.”  The first Christmas he was singing that in Heaven instead of First Baptist, a recording of him singing that old spiritual was played.  Some things are more than tradition. 

It seemed everyone I ever knew from that church came home for the service and I remember dreaming of the day I’d bring my own babies to church on Christmas Eve to sit proudly beside their grandparents.  Madelynne’s first Christmas she was dressed to the nines and sat proudly (and sleepily) in the crook of her granddaddy’s arm for the service.  Now, we take my little girls to our church for the candlelight service.  I hope someday it’s a memory they’ll treasure.

My second favorite memory is more recent, but still has it’s roots in my childhood.  We don’t always celebrate on Christmas Eve or Day with my family anymore because trying to schedule three married children, two teenagers, and two twenty-somethings is more than even google calendar can handle.  But whenever we do finally get together there always comes a time when we get settled around the big fireplace and the giant Frasier fir, when Daddy’s drinking coffee and Mama’s rubbing her feet because she’s been cooking since dawn, when the grandbabies are finally sleeping and Audrey’s turned off her cell phone, and we start to talk about all those other Christmases. 

The tree that was so big Daddy had to cut it apart to get it out of the house.

The time Corey got a puppy and Mama tricked him by hiding the little fur ball in her KitchenAid mixer box.

The time we opened a great big huge box to find nothing but Mickey Mouse ears and a guessing game which was answered with “Disney World!”

For a brief time, no one is fighting or complaining.  There’s no drama and no tempers.  It’s our own little world of Christmas Peace, a moment I could hold onto forever.