As Christmas approaches my thoughts are drawn back to the memories of Christmas past. When our children were young Christmas was a magical time of the year. The memories are sweet and comforting. One in particular comes to mind of many years ago. This was when my oldest daughter was 6 years old. I cracked open my old journal this morning and read about the experience and felt like sharing it with you. Here is my journal entry from Christmas Eve 1990:

Christmas Eve – what a night! It was a lot of fun for me and Lisa to see the excitement in the kids’ eyes. We sang Silent Night and then read the Christmas story in Luke. The kids wanted to get to bed so fast. Neil kept telling everyone to stop talking so we could get through our scripture reading.

After family prayer and scripture reading we sent them off to bed. Soon after that I went outside and rang the jingle bells outside the kids’ window. Later, when I went into their room to check on them, they were so excited to tell me about hearing the bells.

Erika had written a letter to Santa and left it by the tree. She asked several questions like; is there really a red nosed reindeer and how does he know if you are awake and how do reindeer fly? She also left a banana and a glass of milk for Santa on the fireplace mantle.

So I decided Santa should write her back. I sat down at the kitchen table and began writing her a letter from Santa as I ate the banana and drank the milk. I used a red pen and wrote in a very fancy script. I was halfway through the letter when I looked up and there was Erika, standing by the table staring at me! I about died on the spot! She wanted a drink of water. I quickly covered the letter, got her a drink and then chased her off to bed.

Later I went back into her room just to see what she would say to me or what kind of questions she may ask. I was worried about how much she may have seen. Luckily she hadn’t noticed what I was doing earlier or at least didn’t say anything about it. That was a close one!

Later Lisa and I were wrapping presents and I was hauling them upstairs. I decided to check on her again. She was still awake at 12:15 a.m.! That little rascal! She is so excited. It’s 1 a.m. and I hope she’s asleep now. It will be so fun to see the excitement on the kids’ faces in the morning.

And it was exciting, as all Christmas’s were back then. There is nothing quite like having Christmas with small children. They had a way of bringing back the magic and excitement of my own childhood. Now my daughter has two children of her own and she has begun the cycle all over again of experiencing the magic through them.

I’ve heard criticism from time to time of people who “deceive” their children with the whole Santa Clause thing. Frankly, I’ve not seen any negative effects from it with my children. In fact it’s been quite the contrary with my experience. Now, when my children gather at our home they love to talk about the great Christmas memories of their childhood.

We can talk about tips and techniques for mastering our family relationships but sometimes the answers to our problems are so simple. Sometimes all that we need is to spend time together having fun and building memories. Christmas traditions build wonderful memories with your family that will last a lifetime. It’s part of the glue that holds a family together. May you take the time to build memories with your loved ones this Christmas season. The dividends and blessings will continue to come year after year.

What are your Christmas memories? What is the glue that holds your family together? Please share!

Thank you.

Master Yourself, Master Your Life

Copyright © 2008 Garold N. Larson

Are you deficit spending in the most important relationships in your life? This article will help you get out of emotional debt and turn your failing relationships around.

I have a 15-year-old teenage daughter. Kimberly is her name. She and I have always had a close relationship as father and daughter. Recently, though, I’ve noticed that she doesn’t want much to do with me. In fact our relationship has been strained on a fairly frequent basis. When I see her and say “Hi” she barely acknowledges me. When I ask her how school is going she gives me a scowl and mumbles something under her breath that sounds like “go away and leave me alone.” I couldn’t quite make it out. Anyway, I was getting concerned. I know deep down inside that she loves me. So what was going on here?

I suppose I could chalk up this behavior to the normal teenage tension that goes on between adolescents and their parents, but I just wasn’t buying that. What really was the root cause here?

Read the rest of this entry »

Good morning! I want to talk about how strict or rigid should you be in keeping goals. For example, in my case I set a goal to go to bed each night at 10:30 p.m. How rigid should I be with that and should there be exceptions?

My answer to that is that there has to be exceptions at times but they should be few and far between.

For me last night was one of those exceptions. The only time there should be an exception is if there is a higher priority at play here that supersedes the lower one. For example, a higher priority would be my family and my relationships with my children. In this case it was attending a performance that my son was in.

Let me just explain what it was about. My soon-to-be 17-year-old son is a member of the local high school marching band. He plays the sousaphone. (Yes, that’s him in the center of the photo.) I thought it was called a tuba but apparently a tuba is played sitting down such as in a concert. A sousaphone is simply a version of the tuba used by marching bands. Anyway, my son and his band have worked extremely hard on their performance. For those of you who have never been involved with marching bands, they actually have competitions where many marching bands get together and compete. Each band puts on a performance that includes a number of elements. They have judges who judge the competition and they give awards at the end. This is a huge event that begins in the early afternoon and goes on until after 10:00 at night. Read the rest of this entry »