Precious Memories

It's Christmas Eve and all the hustle and bustle are about to wind down...thank goodness...and my mind drifts back to "years of yore". There is 1 particular Christmas Eves past that comes to my mind:

I must have been about 5 years old (1957). The whole family was getting together for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner and open presents. We had decided to do this at my aunts house. She just lived one street over from us. Un-be-known to me my parents kept "Santa" in the trunk of the car so I wouldn't find it. (Of course in those days the trunk of a car would hold a house.) Any way...as we gathered for our meal, mother remembered something that she had forgotten at our house and had to run back to get it. We were all waiting on mother to return so we could eat. We waited and waited and waited. It should have taken her maybe 5 minutes to run to our house and get back. We had tried to call the house but no one answered. It got to be 30 minutes and everyone was getting really worried. Some of the uncles decided to go look for her (dad went too). Now they were gone forever too and the worry turned into fear (makes me thankful for cell phones).

What had happened? Mother was on her way back to my aunts house when she was rear-ended by a drunk driver (Smashed on Christmas Eve? Go figure!) which rendered both cars un-drivable. Being Christmas Eve (no one driving by and no cell phones), they had to walk to several houses to find a phone so they could call the police (houses weren't very close together and not everyone had a phone either).

Well, thank God no one was injured and by the time the whole ordeal was over we finally got to eat and open presents about 10pm (see picture in Wordless Wednesday). Now remember I told you earlier that my parents kept "Santa" in the trunk of the car????!!!! Apparently mom had decided to take them into the house while she was home so Christmas wasn't "Smashed" (lol) after all.

Needless to say this could have turned out to be a really tragic story but God had His hand on all of us that night and I give Him all the Glory for everything He has done and continues to do for us and give thanks for the wonderful gift He sent to us.