Documenting Memories
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This year four grandchildren, K, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, and 5th grade, performed a little play they wrote and practiced in the bedroom. My grandson in the Army stationed in Fort Sill, OK, showed us videos of the Christmas light/music show he created at his house. Also, a reprise of an old party piece from years ago was requested and resurrected from our Christmas scrapbook. Then our 5-year-old grandson and his Daddy performed jokes and laughed at his own jokes cracking everyone else up!
One of our daughter-in-loves offered a very unique Party Piece which is to be ongoing for the next 20, at least, years. She gave the family a beautiful leather-tooled journal with unique crafting and the instructions for everyone, every Christmas, to record his/her memory of any Christmas, past or present, and sign it. It began this year with everyone writing before they left for home. Some of the memories went way back in time.
Reading them, and laughing, and remembering, I’m touched by how personal a thing is a memory. How many people in one room remember the exact moment of an incident, but no two remember it exactly the same. How a single detail is so well-remembered by one, but a sibling who was there and shares the memory, missed that detail. It’s a beautiful thing, really, and makes memories one of life’s greatest collages. This little journal, about the size of a diary from our teen years, is going to become a cherished Party Piece the family will share for years, journaling our Christmas memories.
My precious memory of this day, the Feast of the Holy Family, was being at Mass with our family, taking up three pews. The Mass was a memorial Mass for our son-in-law who died suddenly one year ago, and today we were all there for our daughter. A special memory, indeed.