Another year is quickly winding down.
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and it is a time to celebrate so much we hold dear.
As you read my Christmas ramblings I’m in DeLand spending a few days with my mother, two of my sisters and several nieces, a nephew and great nieces and nephews.
Yes, the family is constantly expanding, or so it seems.
If I close my eyes and squeeze them tight enough I can go back to another time and place when there was much more life ahead of me than behind me.
My Christmas memories are filled with faith, family, more faith and more family.
Yes, my parents let us know about Santa Claus, but they made sure we knew that Christmas is the birthday of King Jesus.
We opened our family gifts on Christmas Eve and on Christmas morning we woke up to find Santa’s gifts under the tree. One of my earliest Christmas memories is from the early 1960s. It snowed in Memphis, Tenn., that year and when I saw the footprints of my parents and grandparents in the snow I knew that was the path Santa walked.
I believe I received my first football that snowy Christmas day more than 50 years ago. It seemed as if every few years I got a football or basketball for Christmas. Santa must have magically heard I lost a ball or one was wearing out from constant usage.
There would be electric football and baseball games and Hot Wheels to fill my Christmas mornings.
As I got older the excitement of Christmas was often too much for me and I became an expert at snooping for my gifts. One such occasion, when I was in the ninth grade, ended up with a story that has become part of our family lore.
One of my sisters caught me snooping and stuck her finger nails in my arm trying to get me to put down the gift. When negotiations failed, I put down the gift and realizing I had a free hand, I popped her in the mouth.
No teeth were lost, but stitches were required and my young life passed before me several times that day waiting for my dad to come home from work
Forty-two years later I’ll be the first to admit I should have been punished for my actions. But as Dad carefully weighed the situation he showed me mercy with a stern warning that it would be in my interest never to never again hit one of my sisters.
That Christmas season I learned about mercy, which is not getting what we deserve.
Christmas to me is about grace, mercy and love, which encompass the message of the angels of “Peace on earth. Good will to all men.” I believe we all desire those things and they are found in Bethlehem’s Baby.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Email News Bulletin Sports Editor Randy Dickson, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Memories of Christmases past