Category: Christmas

Christmas, Relationships

The Gift Of Listening

December 28th, 2024
Mollie T. Cox

Friends are those rare people who ask how we are, and then wait to hear the answer.

Ed Cunningham

If Cunningham is right, then I had a treasure trove of friends in 2024.

Tina, who sat with me on the church sofa and listened while I talked.

Katie, who drove to my house for tea and prayer and listened while I talked.

Barb, who drove me to class and listened while I talked.

Kathy, who sat on my patio and listened while I talked.

Sara, who sat with me in her car and listened while I talked.

Beth, who phoned and listened while I talked—as she has for over sixteen years.

My mother-in-law who was always glad to hear from me and listened while I talked.

Aunt Shirley, the only aunt who listened while I talked rather than talking while I listened.

My husband, who sat up past his bedtime to listen while I talked.

And more who crossed my path less frequently.

Why is listening such a gift?

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. … When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.

Karl Menniger

May we all listen and be listened to in 2025.

Christmas, Memories

Returning to Former Places

December 21st, 2024
Mollie T. Cox

At a recent banquet, one speaker urged his listeners to revisit places of former years—not literally, but rather as a mind exercise. His words immediately brought forth a memory of former years as well as a memory of a visit to that place decades later.

In the 1990s, during a rare trip to my grandparents’ home, I stood in their front yard one late night and was ambushed by the pungency of the honeysuckle growing in their far backyard. That smell immediately evoked a 1960s image of my mother, aunt, and grandparents drinking coffee and talking around a concrete table while my siblings and I chased fireflies and listened to their comforting, adult conversations.

Almost another thirty years have passed, and that memory of a memory is still with me. I’m not sure why it lingers or why it means so much—maybe even more than the original memory of evenings I loved before air-conditioning kept us indoors.

However, I’m glad for both the urging and permission to return to former places—whether literally or in my mind—especially during the holidays when I might be ambushed again.

May only good memories sneak up on you this Christmas.

Christmas, Parenting

The Christmas Generation Gap

December 14th, 2024
Mollie T. Cox

Along the way, I learned that Christmas traditions are outgrown. When my sons sat in the car instead of helping choose our Christmas tree—they claimed it was too cold—I was dismayed. I thought my high schoolers had turned into Scrooges until I remembered my mother’s disappointment when I said, “I’d rather get back to the dorm. Decorate the tree without me.”

When my sons were no longer interested in seeing the White House Christmas tree, I remembered my father’s disappointment when he said, “Pilot Life has its Creche displayed. Who wants to go see it?” and my siblings and I declined.

Eventually, my sons will grow old enough to return to the festivities they enjoyed when they were younger. Until then, the generation gap amuses me.  

Exciting for the young and old—not those in between

Along the way, I also learned that my sons’ return will be on their terms. I mustn’t mind when they dismiss the Festival of Lights with my husband and me and then plan a similar outing in another city with their dates. (This really happened.)  

P.S. My children never outgrew Christmas food or Christmas worship services.

Book Recommendations, Christmas

An Advent Calendar of Books

November 23rd, 2024
Mollie T. Cox

What do I wish I had known and experienced when my sons lived at home?  An Advent Calendar of Books.

This Advent Calendar contains a wrapped stash of books to be unwrapped one by one during Advent. New books don’t have to be purchased yearly. Opening Christmas favorites can be satisfying.

Ideas abounded on the internet, but my favorites were beginning with a book per week of Advent and using library Christmas books until you have decided on the books you want—and can afford—in your permanent collection.

After years of collecting, I might have enough for each day of Advent.

My recent additions to my overflowing shelf of Christmas books are

Silent Night by Lara Hawthorne

Voices of Christmas by Nikki Grimes

The Christmas Mitzvah by Jeff Gottesfeld

and Santa Who? by Gail Gibbons.

I’m not sure I could have managed the wrapping and unwrapping of twenty-four books when my sons were young, but my book-per-week selection would have been well-loved favorites

Tomie dePaola’s Christmas Carols by Tomie dePoala

The Lion in the Box by Marguerite de Angeli.

B Is for Bethlehem: A Christmas Alphabet by Isabel Wilner

and Christmas Eve by Edith Thacher Hurd

Happy Reading.

Christmas, Relationships

Too Good To Be True Pt 2

December 9th, 2023
Mollie T. Cox

Never compare your insides to everyone’s outsides.

Anne Lamott

One year, two Christmas cards were returned to me. I googled the addresses and both houses had been sold. Both couples were empty nesters—one new and one old. Had they downsized?

After more searching—including using my sister’s Facebook account—I discovered that one couple had divorced. I thought they were an incredibly happy couple with well-adjusted adult children. According to their previous Christmas letter, all family members were pursuing their dreams. I didn’t know that one person dreamed of a divorce.

The trail of the other couple was cold. Given the other news, I feared the worst. I eventually learned my friends had bought a bigger house—the better to hold new in-laws and future grandchildren.

I have learned that people or families or marriages too good to be true are too good to be true. (See here.) Therefore, should I be shocked when the families I envied are broken?

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  

Romans 8:23

My comparisons are bad enough, but they are even worse when my standard is a Christmas letter.

Do Christmas letters encourage you or discourage you?