This month, we're featuring Christmas memories from your favourite Canadian Christian authors.
As a child of 11 in 1956, I used to trudge along messy sidewalks carrying my heavy, rented accordion. Hoisting it up onto the crowded bus for the long, grey ride from Fort Garry to downtown Winnipeg, then off again and finally up a long, dark stairway to my lessons, was quite a feat. I desperately wanted an accordion of my own, but ministers didn’t make much money in those days.
Mom and Dad and I had recently moved from Ontario and so were far from friends and family. There were just the three of us gathered around our little tree that Christmas morning. Just before we began the excitement of opening our gifts, Dad said, “Diane, could you please go out to the porch and bring in the box I left out there?”
The porch was frigid. Wait! There was a suitcase with a big red bow on it! It couldn’t possibly be an accordion case! But it was heavy.... Dad smiled. “Open it up.”
Inside was a shiny blue accordion with gold accents and gleaming white keys. Ohhhhhh! Dad died in 1995, but whenever I get that old accordion out to play, I am warmed by the memory of his sacrificial love.
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Diane Roblin-Lee's latest title is a legacy workbook called, "To My Family...My Life."
Showing posts with label Authors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Authors. Show all posts
Monday, December 21, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Author Christmas Memories: Denyse O'Leary
This month, we're featuring Christmas memories from your favourite Canadian Christian authors.
Time to confess: I’ve never been a fan of Christmas as it is so often “celebrated”. Too often it has meant ... endless baking for the already overfed, added to the intellectual torture of finding gifts for people who have everything they need (and don’t really want what I will finally end up giving them either). And - this is worst of all - vicious fights between revelers who got along while kept apart, but Christmas festivities unfortunately drove them together.
Christ Child, where ARE you? I have so often wondered.
But one oasis has been timeless - the Christmas Eve midnight church service. Anticipating the bells of midnight, we are transported far, far from commercial harassment and social stress. There we worship, and acknowledge once more the impossible redemption made possible - and by a baby too!
Actually, only God would think of sending a baby rather than an invincible army of angels.
I come back home and light all the Advent candles and think, yes, he came to redeem this VERY situation we struggle with. And he will - if we let him.
---
Denyse Leary, is co-author with Mario Beauregard of "The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul."
Time to confess: I’ve never been a fan of Christmas as it is so often “celebrated”. Too often it has meant ... endless baking for the already overfed, added to the intellectual torture of finding gifts for people who have everything they need (and don’t really want what I will finally end up giving them either). And - this is worst of all - vicious fights between revelers who got along while kept apart, but Christmas festivities unfortunately drove them together.
Christ Child, where ARE you? I have so often wondered.
But one oasis has been timeless - the Christmas Eve midnight church service. Anticipating the bells of midnight, we are transported far, far from commercial harassment and social stress. There we worship, and acknowledge once more the impossible redemption made possible - and by a baby too!
Actually, only God would think of sending a baby rather than an invincible army of angels.
I come back home and light all the Advent candles and think, yes, he came to redeem this VERY situation we struggle with. And he will - if we let him.
---
Denyse Leary, is co-author with Mario Beauregard of "The Spiritual Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Case for the Existence of the Soul."
Monday, December 7, 2009
Author Christmas Memories: Sue Augustine
This month, we're featuring Christmas memories from your favourite Canadian Christian authors!
A while ago, my husband and I, with our two grown daughters, made a decision to reduce the hassles of Christmas by celebrating with less commercialism. We’ve always emphasized the true meaning of Christmas – the birth of Christ - but we expected some resistance from our four grandchildren when we explained there’d be less focus on presents under the tree and more emphasis on family time. So we were surprised at their delight when they found out we’d chosen to pool our money and take a vacation together instead of exchanging gifts.
A northern Ontario resort offered us cozy cottages with fireplaces, plus an outdoor rink, indoor pool, tubing hills, horse-drawn sleigh rides and a forest with hiking trails. Mornings were spent congregating in one of the cottages for a big breakfast and some reading, puzzles, artwork or crafts. Then we’d bundle up and have a fun day outdoors playing in the snow, ice skating and tobogganing. Later, we gathered around the fireplace, warmed up with hot chocolate, and got out the board games.
Christmas dinner was relaxed as we made do with plastic bowls and not enough serving spoons! But there was plenty of roast turkey with all the fixings, served with candles and linens brought from home. Later, we were pleased to hear our 8-year old grandson’s answer when a friend asked, “How did you like Christmas without gifts?” AJ replied, “Presents wear out, but memories last forever!”
--
Sue Augustine is author of "Turn Your Dreams into Realities", "When Your Past is Hurting Your Present", and her most recent release, "Sanity Secrets for Stressed-Out Women".
A while ago, my husband and I, with our two grown daughters, made a decision to reduce the hassles of Christmas by celebrating with less commercialism. We’ve always emphasized the true meaning of Christmas – the birth of Christ - but we expected some resistance from our four grandchildren when we explained there’d be less focus on presents under the tree and more emphasis on family time. So we were surprised at their delight when they found out we’d chosen to pool our money and take a vacation together instead of exchanging gifts.
A northern Ontario resort offered us cozy cottages with fireplaces, plus an outdoor rink, indoor pool, tubing hills, horse-drawn sleigh rides and a forest with hiking trails. Mornings were spent congregating in one of the cottages for a big breakfast and some reading, puzzles, artwork or crafts. Then we’d bundle up and have a fun day outdoors playing in the snow, ice skating and tobogganing. Later, we gathered around the fireplace, warmed up with hot chocolate, and got out the board games.
Christmas dinner was relaxed as we made do with plastic bowls and not enough serving spoons! But there was plenty of roast turkey with all the fixings, served with candles and linens brought from home. Later, we were pleased to hear our 8-year old grandson’s answer when a friend asked, “How did you like Christmas without gifts?” AJ replied, “Presents wear out, but memories last forever!”
--
Sue Augustine is author of "Turn Your Dreams into Realities", "When Your Past is Hurting Your Present", and her most recent release, "Sanity Secrets for Stressed-Out Women".
Monday, November 30, 2009
Author Christmas Memories: Sheila Wray Gregoire
In the month ahead, we'll be featuring Christmas memories from your favourite Canadian Christian authors!
When my daughter Rebecca was almost three we had our last encounter with true Christmas innocence. As the family gathered around the tree, Grandpa handed her a gift. She was thrilled. And then Grandpa tried to give her another package. Looking confused, she protested, “but I already have a present.” She didn’t know more were coming, and she was grateful for what she had.
That was then. This is now. Her younger sister Katie never experienced that innocence because she had a big sister telling her about the haul they were about to get.
To try to combat this we have instituted the “Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh” principle. Each child gets a Gold gift—something they want. And they get the Frankincense gift—something they need. But finally they get the Myrrh gift—something to help them grow spiritually. And that’s it.
And I pray that as they start to think more about the meaning of Christmas, and not the greed of Christmas, we can recapture that look of pure bliss on Rebecca’s face just to be remembered. For God remembered us, and I hope we never forget it.
---
Sheila Wray Gregoire is the author of four books, including "To Love, Honor and Vacuum: When you feel more like a maid than a wife and a mother."
When my daughter Rebecca was almost three we had our last encounter with true Christmas innocence. As the family gathered around the tree, Grandpa handed her a gift. She was thrilled. And then Grandpa tried to give her another package. Looking confused, she protested, “but I already have a present.” She didn’t know more were coming, and she was grateful for what she had.
That was then. This is now. Her younger sister Katie never experienced that innocence because she had a big sister telling her about the haul they were about to get.
To try to combat this we have instituted the “Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh” principle. Each child gets a Gold gift—something they want. And they get the Frankincense gift—something they need. But finally they get the Myrrh gift—something to help them grow spiritually. And that’s it.
And I pray that as they start to think more about the meaning of Christmas, and not the greed of Christmas, we can recapture that look of pure bliss on Rebecca’s face just to be remembered. For God remembered us, and I hope we never forget it.
---
Sheila Wray Gregoire is the author of four books, including "To Love, Honor and Vacuum: When you feel more like a maid than a wife and a mother."
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