Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 4, A Memory of Christmas Past

One dark and cold evening just before Christmas, we were sitting around our backyard fire pit. I was wrapped in a blanket, Nicholas and Jonathan were lounging in the Adirondack chairs, Joe kept feeding the fire, and Timothy went back and forth between sitting and kicking the soccer ball against the fence.

There is something about sitting around a fire that encourages us to be in the moment; to simply watch the flames crackling and spitting; to sit in quiet contemplation or to share a story.

That evening around the fire pit, we remembered how Once Upon a Time Nicholas claimed, with wide eyes and breathless excitement on Christmas morning, that he had seen a red glow outside his bedroom window which he was certain must have been Rudolph.

It wasn't until several years later he learned that the red glow had been the car brake lights of the guy delivering our morning paper.

It was a good memory to bring forth while sitting around the fire a few days before Christmas.

Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, 

and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, 

become a child again at Christmastime.

~Laura Ingalls Wilder