What's Your Favorite Christmas Memory?

What’s your favorite Christmas memory?

Maybe your mind drifts back to childhood when you helped pick out the family Christmas tree. Or you think of that special gift your parents got you even though money was tight. It could even be a warm kitchen on a cold, snowy day as you baked cookies with your grandmother.

As simple as these and other memories may seem, they’re more significant than you might think. Christmas memories help shape our sense of identity.

When family members put up decorations together, or drive through the neighborhood looking at Christmas lights, or gather for a special meal, it’s a time of connection with one another that marks the moment. And, collectively, these moments become memories we carry into our future. Years from now, the smell of certain foods or the sound of a favorite song will bring to mind special moments from our past and the important people who filled them.

Christmas memories connect us with our heritage as well. When young kids spend time with their grandparents, cousins, and aunts and uncles, it’s an opportunity for them to feel a part of something bigger than themselves. It links them with their family history. And as we grow older, it also brings a sweetness to the memory of loved ones we’ve lost over the years. Their presence lives on in the traditions we enjoyed with them.

That’s why Christmas memories are so rich and meaningful. They surround us like a warm blanket and lift our hearts. On today’s program, we’re sharing Christmas memories from some of our staff members here at Focus as well as a dramatic reading that will serve as a touching reminder of the true gift of Christmas – the Savior of the world born in a lowly manger.

I hope you’ll join us on your local radio station, online or via our free, downloadable mobile phone app. I think our special memories will bring to mind some of yours. In fact, I’d love to hear about them.