CLASS Communiqué - Warm Winter Greetings

Florence Littauer
When I married into Fred's family of lavish living from my modest roots, I had to learn new rules. Grandma and Grandpa set the standards. "Don't' give us anything this year. We have everything." And they did, but they still wanted more. Grandpa came with a list of family members in hand and took notes on every present. I was appalled when at the end of the day he announced who had failed to give him anything. Worse was his rejection of almost every gift he received. "What did you give me this for? I've got three clock radios already." He would then throw or shove what you had given back to you. As Fred and I caught on we started choosing presents we wanted for ourselves, knowing it would be a brief exchange before we got it back. One year Fred bought Grandpa a gold Cross pen and pencil set that he admired. We both laughed. "This is like giving yourself a Christmas present." As Grandpa opened the box, much to our amazement he exclaimed, "I've always wanted a pen set. I'll keep it." He put the pens in his pocket, checked us off the list and moved on to reject the other gifts. We had not beaten his system after all.

Melodie Griffin
Last year, I accidentally started a wonderful tradition of making ornaments with my family. The kids and I toiled to make intricate salt dough ornaments that were supposed to be in our own likeness. Mine ended up with a unibrow and my husband's had a large enough nose to hide several small presents. We yelled with laughter 'til we could hardly breathe, all relieved that we were much more good looking than our ornaments portrayed. This year, we could hardly wait to unwrap our individual shrines, and they didn't disappoint. We giggled and snorted all over again and can hardly wait to see what ornaments we will create this year. Merry Christmas from Mr. Big Nose and Mrs. Unibrow!

Gerry Wakeland
When my now 26 year-old melancholy nephew was eight years old he spent Christmas at our house. One night he and I were alone at home. The house was decorated, dinner was over and he had his jammies on. He asked if we could have a fire in the fireplace so I turned on the gas log. He sat quietly staring at the fire for a very long time and then he said to me, "Aunt Gerry, this is a Kodak moment." I'll never forget the picture of that little boy sitting on my sofa that evening. It really was a Kodak moment.

Craig von Buseck
Every year our family picks one or more Christmas tree ornaments that represent God's goodness to us or some landmark for that year. So when we put up our tree on the weekend after Thanksgiving, we give thanks for God's faithfulness seen in each ornament -- and in the most wonderful gift of all, the birth of Jesus.

Doreen Hanna
I remember our 1st Christmas back in South Carolina - 2,000 miles from home when Chad had lost his job and accepted a position working as a carpenter for the local school district earning less than $9,000 annually. One evening he said he was working late and to pick him up about 7:00. It was dark and cold as I pulled up to the carpenter's shop. Through a small window I saw Chad making a beautiful wooden toy box for our girls. My husband humbled himself to take the lowest paying job he ever had, yet found a way to make that Christmas one of the most memorable ever!

Linda Goldfarb
Every year the first item we place on our Christmas tree is a 7-inch spike. It is hung near the trunk as a reminder of the sacrifice required from the One whose birth we celebrate. Our youngest son, Sam III has the honor of hanging the spike this year.

John Thurman
In 1990, I was a Chaplain in the Army Reserve and twenty-five of our soldiers were being called up for the Persian Gulf War, their departure date was Christmas Eve at noon. We had twenty-five medical personnel going who knows where and about 150 family members at the Albuquerque Sunport, and no where to say goodbye. A Delta manager arranged for us to use their club room. The families had privacy, and a "members only" Christmas service and soon after our soldiers were gone. As you prepare for the holidays, remember those soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen that stand watch over your family.

Golden Keyes Parsons
After years of insisting our three daughters "dress" for Christmas dinner, I finally gave up -- simply grateful this particular Christmas that we were together after our oldest daughter's separation from her husband and our losing our home. I went out the door to fetch the turkey from our daughter's house across the street and quipped, "I don't suppose I need to expect that you girls are going to change for dinner, eh?" When I returned and opened the door to our house toting the tom, there stood our three daughters, each clad in a red formal gown. "Is this dressy enough for you, Mom?"

Kay Rizzo
What began as gentle flakes of snow splatting against our windshield quickly became a blinding blizzard as my husband and I and our 6-week old newborn headed to my parents home on Christmas Eve. As we inched along behind a farm truck in the one semi-plowed lane, our car engine sputtered and stopped. Five minutes later the driver of a state snow plow stopped and tinkered under the hood and we were once again on our way. Less than a mile up the road we came upon a major multi-car accident. The truck we'd been following had steered into a snow bank. The car behind it (which would have been ours) was crushed like a pancake. Without a doubt our baby girl would have been thrown through the windshield. Today she is a concert pianist. Joy!

Pamela Sonnenmoser
The first Christmas after Desert Storm, John, who was in the Marine Corps, and I were stationed at Camp Pendelton, California. Homesick and longing for a big family gathering, we invited all of the guys from his unit to our apartment. As they celebrated their first Christmas back on American soil, I witnessed the true meaning of brotherhood and the joy of Christmas. To this day I am so proud of John's service to our country.

Linda Gilden

For years I admired my mother's cross-stitched tablecloth so one year she bought me a tablecloth kit to make my own. I put the kit in the closet until I had time to work on it. That October I looked but could not find it anywhere. I was really uneasy because I knew come Christmas, Mama would be asking where my tablecloth was.I never found it. When Christmas came and it was time to open presents, Mama and my sister together grabbed a big present and said, "Linda gets to open this one first!" When I opened the gift, there was my tablecloth, perfectly stitched and ready to be put on my table. What a joy! The last twenty years I have put that tablecloth on the table, I have revisited and savored that sweet surprise and gift of love stitched by my mother and sister!

Carol Miller
Christmas of 1970, our second Christmas, our son's first.....My husband was in Vietnam, having left four weeks prior to our child's birth. Late in the evening, on that special Christmas night, after everyone else was asleep, my husband surprised me with a phone call. To hear his special voice for the first time in so many months was the best Christmas present ever!

Susan Osborn
The best Christmas present I ever received was a homemade gift certificate from my son Mike in 1987 right after my ex-husband and I had separated. As you can imagine money was extremely tight that year. The certificate was for one oil change and one tire rotation for my car. And on December 26, Mike jacked up my car, change the oil, and rotated the tires. Truly a gift of love.

Evelyn Davison
Van and I had our first Christmas in San Diego in a tiny apartment. I cooked my first turkey only to find I did not have a platter on which to serve it. We had some sailors as guests and they turned a cookie sheet upside down and two of them held the turkey while Van carved it. Another took our first Christmas picture ....with the worst turkey I ever cooked.

Pamela Christian
Christmas was always spent with my husband's family. David and our two children, Rachael and Gregory,at his parents house. Eleven of us gathered in a very small house around a table-top Christmas tree. Our daughter Rachael and her cousin, then around 4 and 5, were given a gift which they opened with eager expectation, finding that they'd each been given a snow-globe--only our daughter's was broken. The room became tenderly silent. Then without a word, little Chelsea got up from the floor, waded through the wrapping paper and ribbon and exchanged her snow-globe for Rachael's broken one and returned to where she'd been sitting. The room remained silent a little longer. A tear or two were shed as the wonder of Christmas was just perfectly expressed by a little child.

Linda Jewell
I hadn't taken any Christmas decorations with me when I went back to college as a single parent. However, I did have a dozen shiny metal cookie cutters, a ball of red yarn, and a perfect bare tree branch I found outside. My three-year-old son and I decorated our "tree" then snuggled on the couch to enjoy a pervasive sense of peace.

Sharon Norris Elliott
Christmas of 2000 I was a struggling, divorced single mom only able to afford one gift for each of my boys. I wrapped and hid the gifts and then sent the boys on a scavenger hunt to find them. They had so much fun deciphering the clues and hunting for the gifts, it didn't even matter they just got one thing. To this day, they remember that as the best Christmas they've ever had.

Andrea Chevalier
When our oldest daughter Audrey was two years old, she was obsessive about Frosty the Snowman. We had to watch the movie two times a day (that was her limit), and she carried a singing Frosty with her everywhere she went. Now every time I see the movie or hear the song, I picture her in her Frosty outfit (with matching red boots, of course) singing - "Frossy" the Snowman!

Tama Westman
My first Christmas morning as a wife, my husband and I sat by our $10 tree and exchanged gifts. We were so poor, I gave Gary a homemade card, and he'd wrapped up his only gold necklace for me. We still have both tucked away in a memory box, best presents ever.