Remembering

This week between Christmas and New Year's is a week when there's a lot of remembering going on, most of it about things that happened during this last year.

Tonight I'm just remembering things from the past.  I am remembering that the coldest Christmas for me was the one we spent visiting our daughter when she and her family lived in Lochiel, Ontario.  Most probably I've actually experienced other Christmases where the temperature was that cold, but the cold was magnified by the way the air seeped through all the cracks into the old farmhouse where they lived.  The only room that was warm at all was the kitchen and that was warm because there was an old fashioned cook stove in it that was heated by wood.  Most of us huddled in the kitchen around that stove and drank lots of tea and cocoa. 

On Christmas Eve we went caroling to the homes of a few friends.  It was just our own family, our three sons, (Reminds me of a TV program!) my daughter and her husband, and me.  My husband stayed with the two babies, at home.  All of us read music and we sang four part harmony.  I was the weak link even though I had the easy part, soprano.  I had to learn the music for a carol I'd never known before. "On Christmas night, all Christians sing, to hear the news the angels bring."  I still feel so good about singing that song with my family, out in the cold winter night, while we were warmly bundled up in coats and scarves.  We were warmly received at each place we went.  I still remember the words and the tune of the carol, though I don't think I've had the pleasure of singing it with a congregation in a church service.  I've rarely heard it sung anywhere at Christmas, but I think I sing it here at home every Christmas since I learned it.

It's cold here tonight, but nothing like the cold that we experienced when we celebrated Christmas in Lochiel.

Posted by: NJ on 12/26/2004 10:48:25 PM , 2 comments