On the Twelfth Day of a Feminine Christmas

This young woman reminds me of a Grace Livingston Hill heroine.  Maybe it’s because of the lovely church in the background.  Grace’s protagonists were all believers.  If the old Victoria magazine had lasted long enough, I’m sure it would have found Livingston-Hill a worthy subject for its marvelously feminine periodical.  I can only imagine the clothes they would have put the models in:  fur-trimmed wool suits, floral dresses with rustling skirts…I could go on.

Every year I take a peek at Victoria’s book, “A Woman’s Christmas”.  I’ve used it as a mini-journal, recording various details about my Christmas’.  Yesterday I found a sentimental entry I wrote a few years ago and I’m going to share it here.

“I get misty and giddy when I think of all the happy holidays I had at Nana’s, the wonderful little things my mother did for us, the neighbors we always visited on Christmas Eve, the majesty of our Catholic church, the carols I sang my heart out with the Girl Scouts.  All these things were part of my childhood and they live on inside of me…

Then there were the years with HIM.  I decorated our houses with abandon and had the money to do it.  Those trees and homes live on inside too.  As well as the small teddy bear he gave me one Christmas morning with the pearl earrings I still wear today pierced into its furry little ears.  And the challenging but glorious years I was a young single mother of the most darling little girl.  She sang in the choir at church, made cookies with me in her bunny slippers and I especially cherish the Christmas morning she pulled her first real doll out of the box and exclaimed with awe, ‘She looks just like me, Mommy!’  I hold dear the day I took my good friend Karen to Orchard House the week before Christmas and watched her face from the sidelines as she first laid eyes on Louisa May Alcott’s wreathed front door.  All these Christmas memories may live on Yesterday’s shelf but they are a part of me for always.

And my reminiscences of yore, in no way means that I am closed off to the bright new gifts of the future.  I have more Christmas’ in store for me.  And as I await them, I know the real spirit dwells within…alongside the memories.”  ~ December, 2010

Merry Christmas!