"Little Lamb" Painting by Jenedy Paige

 

Frances Rose Robbins
Facebook Post
December 13, 2021

Knowing the story behind this painting has made it one of my favorite nativity paintings of all time. If you read nothing else today, read the words I've added below from the artist, Jenedy Paige. I promise her words and perspective will touch your heart. ❤

"A few years ago, I began to feel that I should attempt a Nativity painting. This of course was a very daunting idea, but I figured the best place to start was with research. I began with Luke 2:7,

“And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.”

I also came upon an article of archeologist, Jeffrey R. Chadwick, and found it eye opening and inspiring. Jeffrey R. Chadwick has worked in Israel as a researcher and field archaeologist for over thirty years, specializing in the backgrounds of biblical narratives. He suggested that the manger would have most likely been carved out of white limestone, one of the most abundant natural resources in the Israelite region, and showed pictures of many similar mangers they have uncovered on archaeological digs. And while we like to think of the baby, “asleep on the hay”, he also states that this was also unlikely, as grass was available on the hills surrounding Judea year round. They really would have had no need to store hay, and the mangers were most likely used for water.

I also learned that while we often think of “swaddling bands” as scraps of fabric, showing the poverty of Mary and Joseph, they were actually a big part of Israelite culture. When a young woman was betrothed she immediately began embroidering swaddling bands, which were 5-6” wide strips of linen that would be embroidered with symbols of the ancestry of the bride and groom. Thus the bands symbolized the coming together of the two families as one. They also symbolized the integrity of the woman, as she strove to make both sides of the embroidery match exactly, symbolizing to her soon to be husband that she was as good on the inside as she was on the outside. These bands were then wrapped around the hands of the couple at the wedding ceremony. So the bands the Savior was swaddled in may have included the lion of Judah and the stem of Jesse.

As I wrapped my head around these rather mind altering ideas, I realized that many of the concepts that we have of the Savior’s birth revolve around paintings of European artists from centuries ago. I’m sure they painted according to the best of their abilities and knowledge, but I also wondered why more modern painters had yet to illustrate these concepts. I felt up to the task and began sketching right away. I picked up limestone from a stone yard, I bought linen from the fabric store, and just in time one of my good friends had a baby boy, and oddly enough, his name was Luke. I put all these components together and created this painting.

As I’ve sketched and worked, my heart has been so full as I’ve uncovered this image. For when you take away the Hollywood drama, the traditions of centuries, and the wood and the hay, all you’re really left with is a babe in white linen on white stone. And my mind immediately went to the purpose of the Savior’s life: He was born to die. He came as the sacrificial lamb for all mankind; so how fitting that He would begin his life on a stone altar of sorts, and be wrapped in white linen, like he would after His death. And of course He would be placed in a trough for water, for He would be Living Water, and would bring life to all. I also found myself weeping for the Father, and how it must have felt to see His Son begin life foreshadowing His death. My heart was so full of gratitude that He would send His Only Begotten to be the Savior for us all. That He would send His Son, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, to die so that we all might live. What good news, what comfort and joy, what a gift was given to us all. O come, let us adore Him."

Utah County pilots perform unique Christmas Eve rescue

 

Utah County pilots perform unique Christmas Eve rescue

By Jed Boal, KSL-TV | Posted - Dec. 26, 2021

SPANISH FORK — On Christmas Eve, as a couple thousand flights were canceled across the country, many eager holiday travelers discovered they would not make it home for Christmas. Realizing this predicament for so many passengers, a couple of pilots in Utah County used their skills to help in an unexpected way.

The Patey brothers live to fly. When they took off from Utah Friday afternoon, they were delivering an extraordinary gift to a young couple they didn't even know.

"If Christmas isn't about reuniting families, then I don't know what it is," Mark Patey said.

Mike and Mark Patey fly search and rescue missions for Utah County. They've done that for 15 years, and have even built a plane specially designed for rescue missions.

"It's been our greatest reward in life: reuniting families that were lost in the mountains, or on a cliff, and bringing them back home," Mike Patey said. "So, reuniting families is something that we've had a passion for forever."

The twin brothers put their passion into action Christmas Eve. They posted on social media that they were ready and able to fly families out of Utah, or fly people back to Utah in their private passenger plane.

"We were waiting at the airport for something to come together. We were search and rescue ready," Mark said.

At the same time, Brecca and Sergio Ponce were at Los Angeles International Airport, where their flight back to Utah had just been canceled.

"We were kind of stranded at LAX," Brecca said.

The couple was traveling and celebrating their anniversary, and excited about being home with family in Utah for Christmas. They haven't done that for three years and had given up on making it home when a friend shared the post from the pilots.

At first, they didn't believe it was real. So, Brecca reached out to Mike.

"They responded within three minutes, and said, 'Hey, we can probably make that work and come get you,'" she said.

"We just jumped in the plane, I mean, we had this engine fired up and running in about 10 minutes, knowing that we had someone to go get," Mark said.

Within a few hours, they were picking up their passengers and bringing them back to Utah.

"I just couldn't believe it," Sergio said. "The whole time we were flying from LA to Utah in their plane, I just couldn't believe it."

They had resigned themselves to missing out on Christmas at home. Instead, they were flying home like VIPs.

"It was probably the coolest thing that's happened to us. We keep calling it a Christmas miracle," Brecca said.

"If you have the opportunity to help, you help. And, when you're in need, you can trust that there are good people out there that will take care of you," Mark said.

It's something their parents instilled in them as kids.

"If you've been blessed with a talent, or a gift or resources, you better give it back, or you don't you don't deserve to have it anymore," said Mike.

Brecca and Sergio said it was like a dream — they can hardly believe that it actually happened.

The Pateys are simply grateful to help out with a Christmas miracle.

Momma and the Magic Bag

 

Momma and the Magic Bag

By Lila L. Smith

 

The howling wind made the tall old house rock and creak. It came down the stovepipe blowing puffs of smoke into the room from the big pot-bellied stove.

 

The windows were rattling, and Mama was stuffing rags into the cracks to hold back the snow. I ran to her and held onto her skirt. Sternly she told me to let go so she could move around.

 

She stopped for a minute, scraped frost from the glass pane, looked out, then started to cry. Mama cried a lot those cold winter day. Papa said she was just homesick, but I knew better, for I heard them talking after they put me to bed.

 

"There’s no use in staying in this God-forsaken place," Mama said. "Now that you have sold the cattle, we can go back to Southern Utah, and live like other people!"

 

"I am not leaving the land I took in as part payment on the cattle," Papa said. "Besides, Canada is a coming country, already the land is fast being taken by homesteaders."

 

I did not know what a God-forsaken place was, or what homesteaders were but I thought it must have something to do with all the snow and ice piling up outside, and something terrible would happen to us as it did to the people in the Bible, when God did not like them.

 

It was dark when Papa and the boys came in, stomping the snow from their boots and clothes. Mama lit the lamp and started supper.

 

"Is it time to put the nails in the wall for the stockings?" I asked Mama.

 

"Yes, get your brothers to put them in behind the kitchen stove, so the things Santa puts in them won’t freeze," Mama said looking at Papa.

 

"Do you think Santa Claus can get through the deep snow?" I whispered to my big brother.

 

"Sure," he said, "Mr. Taylor at the post office says he always gets through. Sometimes the mailman brings things for him."

 

I ran to get the stockings and started hanging them on the nails, but as I reached far over to the last nail my hand slipped and I touched the back of the hot stove. I let out a scream. Papa picked me up and started soothing me.

 

Mama did not say a word. She just reached for the Magic Bag from the top of the cupboard, took me from Papa, put salve that smelled of camphor on my burned arm, and wrapped a clean white cloth around it.

 

She dried my eyes, kissed my cheek, and put me in the big rocker. "You’ll be all right now," she said with a smile. "Just think about it being Christmas Eve, and Santa coming."

 

Somehow it did not hurt any longer, and I almost fell asleep as I smelled the loaves of brown bread Mama was taking from the oven and watched her dish up hot stew for our supper.

 

The house did not creak any longer, and after supper my brothers rubbed the frost off the window so we could see the deep snow glistening in the moonlight.

 

Papa said the storm was over, and Mama said, "After three days it is about time, or we will all be buried alive!"

 

We had just settled down to story reading when the knock came at the door.

 

Papa opened it, and a big man in a fur coat and hat came in. He was covered with snow, and icicles hung from his eyebrows and mustache.

 

"I am Mr. Armstrong," he said. "My wife needs help, and I can’t get through those drifts to Kimball to get Mrs. Talbot in time. I heard that your wife has had training with the sick, so I came to ask her to help us."

 

Mr. Armstrong was all out of breath when he had finished. Papa tried to take his coat and hat, but he said, "No, there is not time, I must get back."

 

Mama took down the Magic Bag, opened it to check the medicine inside, then I followed her into the bedroom and watched while she combed her long black hair. She whirled it round and round, then pinned it in a big bob on top of her head. She put on a clean white apron and let me kneel beside her while she said her prayers.

 

Papa helped her into his big fur coat, he put Lorin’s overshoes on her feet. She put a wool fascinator scarf around her head, then followed Mr. Armstrong into the cold frosty night.

 

I cried myself to sleep when Papa put me to bed. It was sad not to have Mama home when Santa Claus was coming.

 

The room was still dark when I woke up and saw a light shining through the curtain over the doorway. I jumped out of bed and ran into the big room that was kitchen, boy’s bedroom, and living room for our family.

 

A blast of cold air came in the door with Mama and Mr. Armstrong. They were both covered with snow. Mama said the horse could not pull them and the buggy through the deep drifts and they had to get out and walk. She looked tired and pale. Papa helped her off with the big coat.

 

In my excitement at seeing Mama, I had forgotten about Santa and the stockings. Then the boys jumped out of bed, and we went to look behind the stove. Santa had gotten though. The boys had skates and standing beneath my stocking was a pretty Red-Riding doll.

 

 But I lost interest in the doll when I heard Mr. Armstrong say that Mama had given them a beautiful baby boy for Christmas!

 

The rest of the day I played with my doll but kept looking at the Magic Bag on top of the cupboard in hopes another Christmas baby would come out.

 

We ate our dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes, and creamed carrots, topped off with Mama’s suet pudding and sauce, which we could hardly choke down after Mama told us there would be no Christmas dinner at the Armstrongs, just potatoes, cabbage and an egg, if the hens laid enough. The early snow and freezing had covered their crop before it could be cut and threshed.

 

After the boys had washed the dishes for Mama, Papa brought around the horses and sleigh to take Mama to see how Mrs. Armstrong and the baby were getting along, and we all went with them.

 

The horses lunged through the deep snow, sending snowballs from their hoofs back into the sleigh. We laughed when the drifts were so high the sleigh bounced over the top, jarring us when it hit bottom.

 

We arrived at the Armstrong house that looked like two boxes put together with a lean-to porch in between. Papa tied the horses, and we followed Mama into one of the boxes. I looked at the other door, and just knew it must be the stable. The side we went in was a kitchen where four children sat with their coats on, huddled around the stove.

 

"You better keep your coats on," the oldest boy said. "There’s not enough wood to keep both stoves going, and Mama and the baby must be kept warm. Papa has gone over to an old shed to find more wood."

 

Mama told me to take off my hood and mittens. But when I pulled off my mittens out came the two red apples, I had carried clenched in my fists, and they rolled on the floor. I was afraid Mama would scold – but she just smiled as I picked them up and gave them to the two little girls.

 

Mama took the kettle from the stove and the Magic Bag and left for the stable. I helped the two girls cut out paper dolls from a catalog, and my two brothers played marbles with the two Armstrong boys.

 

Papa came in carrying a big box. He took out Mama’s big roaster and put it in the oven, then piled wood in the stove and a few chunks of coal.

 

Soon Mama came to the door and told us we could come see the baby.

 

When we went through the other door, it wasn’t a stable, but a big bedroom. The baby was in a cradle made of a wooden box, not a manger. He had a red face, but no halo on his head as it shows the Christmas Baby in the Bible stories!

 

Then we left for home and the setting sun made the white world and clouds look pink.

 

Mama said, "This has been a beautiful Christmas day."

 

And we sang "Jingle Bells" to the sound of the squeaking sleigh runners cutting the crisp snow.

 

 When we arrived home Mama and I took off our wraps, my brother Ray brought in the coal, and Papa built up a warm fire.

 

"What’s for supper, Mama?" Lorin asked.

 

"Oh, we can make sandwiches from the roast beef left form dinner," she said.

 

"I don’t think we can," Papa said. "I took it and the gravy to the Armstrongs. But we can have the rest of the suet pudding and sauce."

 

"No, we can’t," Mama said. "I took that to Mrs. Armstrong."

 

"Well, boys, let’s have some of the nuts and candy from your stockings," Papa said, "because it won’t matter if they do spoil our appetites now."

 

"We can’t give you any from our stockings, Papa. We took them to the Armstrong children," Ray said.

 

Everyone laughed, and we made jokes and riddles while we ate our supper of bread and milk.

 

From then on, if anything was lost, we would ask, "Did you take it to the Armstrongs?"

 

Mama never cried by the window any longer. She was too busy making carbolic salve, camphorated oil, liniment, and canker medicine from the recipes Grandpa Pugh had brought across the plains with him in the Magic Black Bag. They had been given to him by his Welsh ancestors and given to Mama when she left for Canada.

 

Mama always said she found a magic recipe for happiness in the Magic Bag that Christmas Eve, and she often told it to us: a lot of faith with a lot of work will make everything turn out right. And never feel sorry for yourself – there is always someone in the world with more miseries than your own.

 

All winter she went through blizzards, rain, winds, and floods to help children with croup, pneumonia, and broken bones. She left babies for ranch women, women on lonely homesteads, and women across the boundary line on the Indian reservation.

 

Through it all she had a smile, time to tell us stories, and time to sing.

The Year We Had a “Sensible” Christmas

The Year We Had a “Sensible” Christmas
December 1964
by Henry Appers, Paris, Illinois

For as long as I could remember our family had talked about a sensible Christmas. Every year, my mother would limp home from shopping, or she would sit beside the kitchen table after hours of baking, close her eyes, catch her breath and say, "This is the last time I'm going to exhaust myself with all this holiday fuss. Next year we're going to have a sensible Christmas."

And always my father, if he was within earshot, would agree. "It's not worth the time and expense."

While we were kids, my sister and I lived in dread that Mom and Dad would go through with their rash vows of a reduced Christmas. But if they ever did, we reasoned, there were several things about Christmas that we, ourselves, would like to amend. And two of these were, namely, my mother's Uncle Lloyd and his wife, Aunt Amelia.

Many a time Lizzie and I wondered why families had to have relatives, and especially why it was our fate to inherit Uncle Lloyd and Aunt Amelia. They were a sour and a formal pair who came to us every Christmas, bringing Lizzie and me handkerchiefs as gifts and expecting in return silence, respect, service and for me to surrender my bedroom.

Lizzie and I had understood early that Great-uncle Lloyd was, indeed, a poor man, and we were sympathetic to this. But we dared to think that even poverty provided no permit for them to be stiff and unwarm and a nuisance in the bargain. Still, we accepted Great-uncle Lloyd and Great-

aunt Amelia as our lot and they were, for years, as much the tradition of Christmas as mistletoe.

Then came my first year in college. It must have been some perverse reaction to my being away, but Mona started it. This was to be the year of the sensible Christmas. "By not exhausting ourselves with all the folderol," she wrote me, "we'll at last have the energy and the time to appreciate Christmas."

Dad, as usual, went along with Mom, but added his own touch. We were not to spend more than a dollar for each of our gifts to one another. "For once," Dad said, "we'll worry about the thought behind the gift, and not about its price."

It was I who suggested that our sensible Christmas be limited to the immediate family, just the four of us. The motion was carried. Mom wrote a gracious letter to Great-uncle Lloyd explaining that what with my being away in school and for one reason and another we weren't going to do much about Christmas, so maybe they would enjoy it more if they didn't make their usual great effort to come. Dad enclosed a check, an unexpected boon.

I arrived home from college that Christmas wondering what to expect. A wreath on the front door provided a fitting nod to the season. There was a Christmas tree in the living room, and I must admit that, at first, it made my heart twinge. Artificial, the tree was small and seemed without character when compared to the luxurious, forest-smelling firs of former years. But the more I looked at it, with our brightly wrapped dollar gifts under it, the friendlier it became, and I began to think of the mess of real trees, and their fire threat, and how ridiculous, how really unnatural it was to bring a living tree inside a house anyway. Already the idea of a sensible Christmas was getting to me.

Christmas Eve Mom cooked a good but simple dinner and afterward we all sat together in the living room. "This is nice," Lizzie purred, a-snuggle in the big cabbage rose chair.

"Yes," Dad agreed. "It's quiet. I'm not tired out. For once, I think I can stay awake until church."

"If this were last Christmas," I reminded Mom, "you'd still be in the kitchen with your hours of 'last-minute' jobs. More cookies. More fruit cake." I recalled the compulsive way I used to nibble at Mom's fruit cake. "But I never really liked it," I confessed with a laugh.

"I didn't know that," Mom said. She was thoughtful for a moment. Then her face brightened. "But Aunt Amelia —— how she adored it!"

"Maybe she was just being nice," Lizzie said undiplomatically.

Then we fell silent. Gradually we took to reading. Dad did slip off into short snooze before church.

Christmas morning we slept late, and once up we breakfasted before advancing to our gifts. And what a time we had with those! We laughed merrily at our own originality and cleverness. I gave Mom a cluster-pin that I had fashioned out of aluminum measuring spoons and had adorned with rhinestones. Mother wore the pin all day or, at least, until we went out to Dempsey's.

At Dempsey's, the best restaurant in town, we had a wonderful, unrushed feast. There was only one awkward moment just after the consommé was served. We started to lift our spoons. Then Dad suggested that we say grace and we all started to hold hands around the table as we always do at home, and then we hesitated and drew our hands back, and then, in unison, we refused to be intimidated by a public eating place and held hands and said grace.

Nothing much happened the rest of the day. In the evening I wandered into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, poked around for a minute, closed the door and came back to the living room.

"That's a joke," I reported, with no idea at all of the effect my next remark would have. "I went out to pick at the turkey."

In tones that had no color, Mother spoke. "I knew that's what you went out there for. I've been waiting for it to happen."

No longer could she stay the sobs that now burst forth from her. "Kate!" Dad cried, rushing to her.

"Forgive me. Forgive me," Mom kept muttering.

"For what, dear? Please tell us."

"For this terrible, dreadful, sensible Christmas."

Each of us knew what she meant. Our Christmas had been as artificial as that Christmas tree; at some point the spirit of the day had just quietly crept away from us. In our efforts at common sense, we had lost the reason for Christmas and had forgotten about others; this denied Him whose birthday it was all about. Each of us, we knew full well, had contributed to this selfishness, but Mom was taking the blame.

As her sobs became sniffles and our assurances began to take effect, Mom addressed us more coherently, in Mom's own special incoherent way. "I should have been in the kitchen last night instead of wasting my time," she began, covering up her sentimentality with anger. "So you don't like my fruit cake, Harry? Too bad. Aunt Amelia really adores it! And Elizabeth, even if she doesn't, you shouldn't be disrespectful to the old soul. Do you know who else loves my fruit cake? Mrs. Donegan down the street loves it. And she didn't get her gift from me this year. Why? Because we're being sensible." Then Mom turned on Dad, wagging her finger at him. "We can't afford to save on Christmas, Lewis! It shuts off the heart."

That seemed to sum it up.

Yet, Lizzie had another way of saying it. She put it in a letter to me at school, a letter as lovely as Lizzie herself. "Mom feels," Lizzie wrote, "that the strains and stresses are the birth pangs of Christmas. So do I. I'm certain that it is out of our efforts and tiredness and turmoil that some sudden, quiet, shining, priceless thing occurs each year and if all we produce is only a feeling as long as a flicker, it is worth the bother."

Just as my family came to call that The Christmas That Never Was, the next one became the Prodigal Christmas. It was the most festive, and the most frazzling time in our family's history —— not because we spent any more money, but because we threw all of ourselves into the joy of Christmas. In the woods at the edge of town we cut the largest tree we'd ever had. Lizzie and I swathed the house in greens. Delicious smells came from the kitchen as Mom baked and baked and baked. . . . We laughed and sang carols and joked. Even that dour pair, Great-uncle Lloyd and Great-aunt Amelia were almost, but not quite joyful. Still, it was through them that I felt that quick surge of warmth, that glorious "feeling as long as a flicker," that made Christmas meaningful.

We had just sat down in our own dining room and had reached out our hands to one another for our circle of grace. When I took Great aunt Amelia's hand in mine, it happened. I learned something about her and giving that, without this Christmas, I might never have known.

The hand that I held was cold. I became aware of how gnarled her fingers were, how years of agonizing arthritis had twisted them. Only then did I think of the handkerchiefs that Lizzie and I had received this year, as in all the years before. For the first time I saw clearly the delicate embroidery, the painstaking needlework —— Great-aunt Amelia's yearly gift of love to and for us.

The Miracle of the Pink Christmas Tree

 

The Miracle of the Pink Christmas Tree
By Sunny Mahe

Published 12/13/19

 

I have a pink Christmas tree. Three short years ago I would have thought it was gaudy and ridiculous. But today it represents to me the best things about Christmas: miracles, love for one another, and, most of all, the Savior.

 

The story of my pink tree begins with my three-year-old daughter, named Elsie.

 

My Elsie was innocently naughty in all of the best ways.

 

She brought home fistfuls of my neighbors’ flowers, she constantly snuck into my craft room to dump glitter on her head, and one time she set a neighbor’s chickens free. She was packed to the brim with life and laughter.

 

On November 22, 2016, Elsie became entangled in a cord from our window blinds. When I found her, I screamed her name, quickly took her down, and started CPR. She smelled like chocolate that she must have snuck from the pantry.

 

I sent my son to get help. My neighbor came and administered a priesthood blessing. I remember feeling relief when Elsie took that first ragged breath and her heart began to beat again under my chest compressions. The paramedics swept in and took over the lifesaving efforts, and Elsie was flown in a helicopter to the hospital. For a week at the hospital, she alternately showed signs of progress followed by decline.

 

Miracles

“But behold, I will show unto you a God of miracles” (Mormon 9:11).

 

There were many miracles surrounding her accident. When I sent my son to get help, my neighbor just happened to be running a little late for work. He just happened to already have consecrated oil in his pocket to quickly administer a priesthood blessing. The paramedics were stationed about 15 minutes away, but they just happened to be on break at a store only 3 minutes from my home. And I was somehow able to perfectly administer CPR. I had never done CPR before, but I started Elsie’s heart.

 

When we got to the hospital, Elsie was responding to light and pain, which was good. But she was also experiencing rhythmic, uncontrollable twitches that are common in anoxic brain injuries. She was fevering, and her heart rate was unnaturally high. On top of all that, Elsie was breathing over the ventilator, meaning that for every breath that the vent would give, she would take another on her own, panting like a dog.

 

But then her siblings came to visit. They talked to her quietly. They painted her nails and painted theirs to match. When it came time to leave, they sang to her “Families Can Be Together Forever.” As they sang, her heart rate returned to a normal pace. Her temperature came down. Her breathing slowed, and her twitches stopped and never came back. Another miracle.

 

Because of these miracles, I felt we had every reason to hope for an even bigger miracle—a full recovery to show forth the Lord’s power to heal. But when Elsie’s scans came back, they showed very little brain activity, and even that was beginning to decline. We fled to the temple to seek clarity and peace.

 

In the temple we received the strong impression that Elsie would not live. I was devastated and felt like such a failure. Why was I able to save her only to have her die? Where was my miracle?

 

Elsie became the missing miracle. The lifesaving miracle we had pleaded for would not be for Elsie but instead from Elsie to others through the miracle of organ donation. She would give to those whose missions here were not yet finished, and she would leave this earth as a lifesaving hero. Our pain would become another’s joy.

 

Love for One Another

A different kind of miracle was happening at our house during the week we spent in the hospital.

 

I wondered how I could ever feel safe in my home again. How could I come back to the scene of the worst moment of my life?

 

My wonderful neighbors knew that they could not fix our broken hearts, so they came to my home to fix as many other broken things as they could find—and they didn’t have to look too far to find them!

 

The first round of neighbors vacuumed floors, washed dishes, tidied up toys, and cleaned bathrooms. As more people learned of the service being done, the miracle grew. Furniture was replaced, walls were painted, new decor and lamps were donated, and sinks and appliances were tuned up or fixed. My friends, neighbors, and even strangers went to work transforming my home until it was bursting at the seams with Christlike love and service.

 

When we drove home from the hospital for the final time, we found the streets of our neighborhood lined with hundreds of candles lighting our path. It was bitterly cold, yet dozens of neighbors stood outside to sing comforting hymns to us. Many trees were strung with pink lights or tied with pink ribbons—Elsie’s favorite color.

 

No one asked me what I needed. I wouldn’t have known what to ask for, and I never would have asked for all that I received. But each person came and offered whatever they could to bless our family and ease our burden. They were beacons of light during our darkest hours, the Lord’s hands here on earth.

 

The Savior

One of the things I remember most about that long week is the overwhelming peace that we felt. As we fasted and prayed for peace, it was liberally given. We came to understand what is meant by “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). Because of Jesus Christ, we are able to feel peace even in sorrow.

 

Above all else, my family has more reason now to feel gratitude that Jesus was born. Everything really will be okay in the end because He was born. His birth overcame Elsie’s death. Because of our Savior, we will see Elsie again, and we will be an eternal family.

 

We long for the Savior’s return with more eagerness, we live with more hope in our hearts, and we remember with more reverence that He gave His life that we might live again. “He is the light and the life of the world” (Mosiah 16:9).

 

Pink Christmas Trees

In my neighborhood at Christmastime, many yards will have one tree adorned in pink lights. It used to make me feel so happy that Elsie was remembered and honored. But I see now that the real reason for the pink trees is that Elsie helped others remember Christ, serve as Christ served, and love as He loved. She helps us remember that because He came, we will see our loved ones again.

 

Because those pink trees remind me of Him, they have become the classiest decoration I could possibly have in my home. If you happen to see a pink tree this year, I hope it will remind you of the Savior and maybe of a way that you, too, can light the world this Christmas.

My Most Memorable Christmas

 

My Most Memorable Christmas

By Tiffany Gee Lewis

 

When I was 9 our family had a Salvation Army Christmas. That year, Christmas Day came two days late and featured such memorable gifts as a jewelry box with a giant rip across the top and a coat for my brother that was pocked with cigarette burns, which had been strategically covered by my mother with dinosaur patches.

 

The holiday came late and lean because I had been in the hospital for scoliosis surgery and had to convalesce in the recovery unit on Christmas Day, a most traumatizing thing for a 9-year-old. With the expense of the surgery, my family was, understandably, cash strapped. But Santa Claus, as it turns out, still fills the stockings that hang above hospital beds, and in fact the hospital is a pretty fantastic place to be on Christmas. A kind artist visited and drew my portrait, and a charity group gave me a stuffed nylon bear.

 

All these details, however, are footnotes to the real story of that Christmas. The day before my surgery, I was at the hospital undergoing a series of blood tests and pre-surgery screenings. My mom went to get a bite to eat in the snack bar. There, a woman sitting next to her slid an index card across the shiny counter. It read: "My name is Maria. I am from Mexico and speak very little English. I am undergoing hip surgery and need a place to stay while I recover. Can you please help me?"

 

It was six days before Christmas. My parents had five children, ages 10 on down, and a whiny dog and a daughter about to undergo back surgery. Maria smelled of cigarette smoke. But my mom, a lover of all things people, didn't blink. Of course, we would take her in.

 

So, what I remember most about that belated Christmas at home, beyond the sparse presents and the long days spent trying to adjust to the plastic brace strapped around my torso, were the nights in the yellow room that I shared with Maria. It was true that she spoke little English, but she told me about her boyfriend, Jorge, and we lay in our twin beds recovering, me with a back brace and she with a leg brace, as we listened to Latin love songs on her tape player.

 

She fit right in, and we did not think it odd to have this stranger in our home. My parents, through a long succession of foreign-exchange students and friends who just needed extra love and family, have always extended our home beyond the six children born to them. For many years after that thrift-store Christmas, we received a certain phone call around the holidays. The voice on the other line spoke rapid, exuberant Spanish. My dad would speak back in a mixture of high school French and mission Italian, and there was a complete understanding of love and gratitude for the kindness shown long ago.

That brings me around to this Christmas. We all have things we love about Christmas, and things we'd rather do without. By far my least favorite part of Christmas is delivering goodies to others. This is a terrible confession, I know. Deliveries to friends and neighbors are important, which is why I find myself every year, standing in the kitchen with a dozen cookie plates splayed about. We pile all the tired, crabby kids and adults in the car and whine our way from house to house.

 

This year, on top of the regular deliveries, we are doing the 12 days of Christmas for our 90-year-old neighbor, Miss Betty. I am not doing this because I am a Mother Teresa in the making. In fact, I was guilted into it. We went to a Christmas party at her house a few weeks ago and she introduced me to her friend by saying, "Tiffany and her boys live next door, but I don't see them much." I felt terrible. The last time we visited her house my oldest son accidentally kicked the China cabinet and nearly sent Miss Betty into cardiac arrest. I didn’t think she wanted to see more of us.

 

But with guilt hanging like a gauntlet, we decided to visit her each day for 12 days, each time bearing a small Christmas gift. Miss Betty has a house full of irresistibly touchable and highly breakable Hallmark ornaments -- everything a child could want to play with and yet shouldn't. My boys tear through her house pressing every button imaginable, as I hover anxiously in near panic. Needless to say, I have not been rendering this service with a song in my heart.

 

But, on Sunday, as we went to deliver the gift for the eighth day of Christmas, Miss Betty quietly said, "This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. I wrote a letter to my friend and said simply, 'You wouldn't believe how lucky I am to have three grandsons who live next door.' "

 

In my relatively few years, this is a lesson I seem to learn repeatedly: Service is never convenient. It's almost against our very nature, especially in this ever-busy era, to squeeze time into our lives and love into our hearts for others. We want to say simply, like the innkeeper so many years ago, "I'm sorry, but there is no room for you here."

 

The other lesson I have learned is that doing unto others is worth it, every time. This is particularly true during the holiday season, when it is hardest, perhaps most stressful, but never more needed and never more poignant. Even if we sometimes do it begrudgingly, when we open our doors to strangers from foreign lands, or free up our time for lovely, aging neighbors, or even deliver a plate of cookies to friends, we do it in the name of him who was born in a darkened corner and yet managed to spread light unto all the world.

No Christmas Tree, No Presents

No Christmas Tree, No Presents

By Mrs. Boyd Lemon

Deseret News, December 20, 1971

 

It was still the first week in December and my Christmas shopping was finished. My fruitcake was stored in the refrigerator, the Christmas cookies were in the freezer, and the hand-dipped chocolates were ready to be boxed.

 

My cupboards were stocked for the holidays, and for the first time during my marriage my parents had waited to come to visit us until after the holidays. Even more important, the children and I felt that we had found "home." For the family of an Air Force sergeant in electronics, home had been many places and often changed. Here in Nevada, we felt we belonged; we loved the people, the climate, and the joy of living there in the beautiful desert lands. Never had we know such contentment.

 

This was the first time I had been so ready for Christmas so early. With the responsibilities of eight small children, I was usually never quite ready. All I had to do now was to take care of the school Christmas programs, the angel and the shepherd costumes for church, the parties and the programs, and enjoy the Christmas spirit and the miracle of love that works its special wonders at this time of year.

 

That Friday afternoon my husband came home and asked if I had my bags packed. Stunned, I asked him why.

He replied, "We’re leaving Monday morning for San Francisco. Our overseas flight takes off Tuesday afternoon."

 

My husband had received an assignment nearly eight thousand miles away, and we had been given less than three days to prepare to leave.

 

I stamped my foot and said, "I won’t go. They can’t make me go like this. And besides, even if I could get ready, the government could never get us packed and out of there by Monday morning."

 

My husband just looked at me, shook his head, and said, "Honey, you’re on your way."

 

Thanks to many friends and to my parents we packed, shipped our household goods, cleaned the house, signed out, and Monday morning we were on our way. We drove all day and all night to get our car to the port for shipment and to make our flight connections in San Francisco. I cried all the way, emotionally and physically exhausted, wondering why this disruption in our lives when everything had seemed to right.

 

After we boarded the plane and we were in the air, I looked down at the coastline and wondered when I would see it again. I immediately dissolved into tears. I didn’t want any part of this, but here I was and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it. The thought that I could adjust had not yet occurred to me.

 

We crossed the international date line, which added another ten hours of darkness to our night., we lost a day, and we arrived at our destination at night. It was as dark as my spirits.

 

Following behind my family, I stepped out of the plane into the hot, moist tropical air of the Philippine Islands. I wondered how I would ever stand it for two years.

 

After clearing through customs, we left the airport to go to the house that had been prepared for us. I was further dismayed by the sight of the compound fences, gates, and the security guard that patrolled our area twenty-dour hours a day. In the days that followed I made a half-hearted attempt to get settled. I started with the twelve trunks and suitcases that we had carried with us.

 

My state of mind during the packing was clearly defined when I opened up our trunks. We found that our oldest daughter’s clothing had all gone into permanent storage, and she had nothing but the clothes she had traveled in.

 

We found valuable space had been taken up by articles that had no immediate value, and many essential items had ben left behind to follow with the rest of the shipment. The final touch was the suitcase full of Christmas cookies we had hand-carried for nearly eight thousand miles.

 

We found our Christmas presents had been inadvertently place in permanent storage along with our summer clothes. Our winter clothes and blankets were on their way to us, sitting practically on top of the equator.

 

No car, no friends, no money. Only days before Christmas, and we found out that our pay records had been lost and we wouldn’t get paid before the end of January at least. We knew there would be no Christmas tree, no presents, and no festive meal with turkey and all the trimmings. After all my work and weeks of preparations, I had never felt so desolate.

 

But not the children. There were out exploring, excitedly living each moment of each day. They were exploring our new neighborhood, getting acquainted with the neighbors, experimenting with a new language.

 

One day I noticed the children walking around the house with their eyes closed, feeling their way with their hands and bumping into everything. It seemed peculiar behavior and they were all doing it, so I asked them why.

 

They told me that twelve-year-old Marty who lived across the street had been blind since birth. They wanted to know what it was like to be blind.

 

It was like being hit in the face with reality. While I was living in the past and feeling sorry for myself, my children were living in the here and now and they were becoming involved with other people, especially Marty, a beautiful, happy child, deprived of so much by accident at birth, yet so loving and giving and bringing joy into the lives of all who knew her.

 

The children found out that Marty’s family had been there only a week longer than we had; the family on one side arrived the day after we did, and the family on the other side had been there only a month. We had much in common. They all had children, and they too were strangers, and lonely.

 

The children became completely involved with Marty, finding out how to play the games that a blind person could play. John, with his guitar, found out she liked to sing as much as our children did, and there were songfests.

 

The children decided to put on a Christmas program. They combined their talents, improvised costumes, and gave us the story of the first Christmas; then Mary, with the voice of an angel, sang "Silent Night."

 

Without a Christmas tree, presents, or a feast, it was one of our most memorable Christmases. We’ll never forget it.

 

I’ll never forget Marty and the lesson of love I learned from her, and the changes that I was able to make in my life, the willingness to accept my life and be thankful for all that I had, and the peace and joy that came into my life because of her.

 

At the end of the two years, we were not ready to return – we stayed another six months, and enjoyed every minute to the fullest, even though Marty had long since gone out of our lives, leaving only the influence of her love and the life she lived – our most valued gift that first Christmas in that faraway land.