Merry Christmas. By the time you open the paper or your web browser to see what’s happening here at the ranch, it will be smack dab in the middle of the Christmas weekend. I hope you’re feeling content with those you love either on their way or settled in. And I hope you’re in a festive getup and making plans to make good on those traditions, new and old.

Each Christmas Eve my family takes on the custom of pancake supper, church and opening a pair of new pajamas the night Santa arrives. This tradition comes from my mom’s side of the family and we’re happy to uphold it with some sausage, bacon, whipped cream and family pictures while we’re all dressed up by the tree. When my grandpa Bill and grandma Ginny moved to the little ranch house after retirement and after my dad’s mother died, along with helping take care of the cows and scaring us with decorations that jumped out at trick-or-treaters on Halloween, my grandma and grandpa would do Christmas Eve right at the ranch. We would eat pancakes and then make our way to one of the three small rural Lutheran churches that was hosting Christmas that year in our community. My favorite was Faith Lutheran, the smallest of them all. That was our church, just down the road a few miles, holding only five or so rows or pews with a small corner for the piano where Elsie would play, confidently guiding us through “Angels we Have Heard on High,” or “Gloria” as we liked to call it. Never had that song ever been sung in unison under the roof of that sanctuary, but boy did Elsie and June try their best to get us there.

Faith Lutheran closed shortly after I moved back to the ranch as an adult, but it holds a special place in my heart for Christmas memories in itchy tights and turning off the lights to share candle flames during “Silent Night.” Even non-believers would have a hard time not feeling something special in the soft glow of the small wax sticks in the hands of the people who chose to pause a moment in the name of something much bigger than this earthly life.

For some reason this year I’m feeling more reflective than usual, more introspective, and maybe a bit anxious. I’m only now, as I type, realizing that it very well could have to do with the ages of my children, now six and eight. When we were celebrating Christmas as a married couple trying and failing to start a family, the idea that we would have these two dynamic, charismatic girls bouncing off the walls of our small living room on Christmas morning seemed like such a far-away dream. And then when they finally arrived and they were babies and young toddlers waddling around, the memories we worked to make with them, the stockings, the jammies, the pancakes, the pictures, they were for us really. The parents who have been waiting to have children of their own on Christmas.

But six and eight-year-olds are made for Christmas, or rather, Christmas was made for them. These moments we get to create for them, the traditions, the elf in the sugar dish, the pancakes and caramel rolls, the time last week I accidentally opened the packages from my husband that were meant to be my gifts, shopping for their dad’s presents at Home of Economy in town after lunch at the diner, the pajamas they will wear, the special dress they picked out, these little things are truly for them, because they are experiences that turn into memories they can keep now that they’re old enough. 

And for all the things I’ve wrapped up to place under the tree–the Barbies and the slime kits (seriously, why?), the new shoes, books and art supplies–I think we all can agree that the pancakes and the “Silent Night” candles are our real gifts to them. And I feel as honored and excited as I am scared to mess it up and sad to know how fleeting this whole childhood thing is.

Thank God for a time like Christmas to help remind us.

Merry Christmas from the ranch. Snuggle in. Snuggle close. Love one another.

And, just for good measure, sing “Gloria” at the top of your lungs.