And the Lord said to Joshua, "Appoint twelve men from the sons of Israel, one man from each tribe, and say to them, cross  again to the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan, (for the water was still parted), and each of you take up a stone upon your shoulder and lay them down in the place you will stay tonight."

Let this be a sign among you, so that when your children ask later, saying, "What do these stones mean to you?" Then you shall say to them, "Because the waters of the Jordan were parted and the ark crossed on dry land."  So these stones shall become a memorial to you forever.

Christmas at our house began on December 12th of every year, because that is my mother's birthday.  It was the family tradition to build and decorate the tree on that day as far back as I can remember.  I say build, because our tree was artificial.  A towering seven foot evergreen with a green trunk and wire bristle limbs, this majestic tree watched over 20 Christmases come and go in the Kearney house.

Our first child, Sean, was not quite a year old when we saw that tree on sale at Sears for $50.  Few visitors ever guessed it was artificial, instead they asked us from what Christmas tree lot we had bought such a perfectly symmetrical tree.  Let's see, $50 divided by 20 years comes out to $2.50 a year.  Not a bad price for a tree.

My very first memories of Christmas are of my father maneuvering the huge box that housed the tree out of the garage  teetered precariously on the ladder's top rung. The box, cold to the touch, as we dragged it from the cold garage into the warmth of the living room, always had a musty, damp smell about it.

The green trunk was the first item to be set up.  It had various size holes around it into which the branches would be set.  We three kids would then argue over who would help dad build the tree.

Year after year, the branches were carefully packed away in order of their size.  The smallest on top to the largest on the bottom, each layer separated by last year's newspapers.  Big mistake. . .

 About two layers down we kids would become distracted by the colored pages of last years Sunday comics.  Soon Daddy's helpers deserted as attention was diverted by the greater attraction of such comics as Peanuts, the Family Circus, and Alley Oop.  The old paper always held a strange attraction to me; like opening a time capsule that made everything old new again.

Daddy, working on alone, would look over at his construction crew sitting quietly on the sofa, feet dangling over the edge and their heads buried behind the comics.  I'm sure he must have missed our help immensely as he labored on without us.

With the tree finally, we started on the lights.  After untangling the cords, the fun began!

Mom and Dad never could seem to agree on what color the lights should be.  For some reason, Mom always wanted all blue lights.  Dad wanted multicolored lights.  Even though we children agreed with Dad -- Mom won, most of the time, and for years our tree was decked in all blue lights.  We never understood our mother's fascination with blue Christmas lights, but we grew to accept it and eventually it became a family tradition.

I wasn't really fascinated with blue lights.  Now that I think of it, I don't really like blue lights all that much.  What I loved was remembering that MY mom and dad's trees were always decorated with blue lights, silver and gold balls, and silver icicles.  I just wanted that loving memory to be present in my home.  That's tradition for you.

Part of my mom's tradition was the purchase of one new ornament a year.  They usually came from vacations, special occasions with friends, or as gifts.  But with three grade school kids, she got a variety of hand-made ornaments as well from school and church, and proudly hung in the tree center stage (or center tree) to be admired and complimented by all.

Our son, Sean, made one memorable ornament.  He proudly announced that it was Rudolph the Red-nosed reindeer, and I tried valiantly and politely to remember that he was after all, just a small child.  But for the life of me, the brown, rough surfaced object looked like it could have come from either end of our cat.  It was the only ornament I ever tried to keep to the back of the tree.  But every time I moved it, Sean indignantly replaced to its front and center position.  I finally began to worry that I might permanently damage his little psyche and left it in front.  I still have it, and I still hang it -- only just sort of to the side, near the back.  Well -- it's not like he still lives at home.

The year I was 11, I explained to a neighbor that I had no money for gifts.  Without comment, she got out a box of Lifesaver candies and some yarn.  "Let me show you how to make something," she said.  Always wanting to learn something new, I watched as she showed me how to make little Lifesaver ornaments with yarn faces and arms.  When I finished the first one, she handed me the material and said, "There's enough for you to make one for everyone in your family as gifts."  Boy did I like that!  I made one for each family member, smuggled them home, wrapped them, and put them under the tree.

Christmas morning, with surprise and delight, we opened Leslie's gifts.  Each of us placed them proudly on the tree.  I marveled not only at the cuteness of the decorations but that she had made them all by herself, unbeknownst to me -- the neighborhood stay-at-home mother.  The ornaments not only resided on that year's tree, but on every tree for the past 17 years -- a lasting memory of her childhood: that you don't need money to give a gift, just a little heart and some Lifesaver candy.

And so the artificial tree was built and taken down year after year -- and every year the Kearney household would gather on December 12th to usher in the holidays with the annual Christmas tree assemblage.

1988 was a financially trying time for our family.  My brother, sister and I were now old enough to work in the family business with our parents -- and it was failing.  That year we agreed not to buy gifts, but to instead celebrate my mother's birthday by building the tree as usual, and on Christmas day invite family and friends for a special meal.

When December 12th dawned, none of us felt much like celebrating.  It's tough assembling a Christmas tree when you know there won't be any gifts under it. But for mom's sake we all determined put aside our depression and try to have a good time.

That day my mother baked her special frosted cinnamon and fruit bread and made her famous hot apple spice drink.  She began setting out the decorations early and lit a few Christmas candles.  When we arrived, the house had a warm inviting glow and smelled like a bakery.

The usual assortment of old Christmas records on the stereo filled the house with the sound of a men's choirs singing God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, The Twelve Days of Christmas, and my favorite Disney record with such classics as Senor Santa Claus, and my personal favorite -- Jingle, Jingle Bones.

My brother arrived with his wife and their new baby and we prepared to build the tree.  This time my brother wrestled it out of the rafters and dragged it through the living room.  He set up the trunk and my sister and I handed him and my father the branches.  Then the usual argument ensued about the lights and soon the tree was all trimmed in blue.

As we began putting on the ornaments, the memories flooded in.  "Do you remember the year I bought this for you?"  "Wow, what a vacation."  And, "Look dear, it's the little caroler I just had to have that first year we were married."  And Dewey would say, as he always did, "Yeah, a $1.49 in those days was equal to $10.00 now – a week's worth of groceries."  And I would tease him about being a grinch even before the story was written.  Sadness became laughter as the conversation flowed around and through the years past.  And the little baby not understanding a word we were saying laughed along with us.  We were so poor, but suddenly we were so happy.  We had memories of God's past and that meant we had the promise of God's future.

Then, one Christmas our artificial tree died.  My father had tried valiantly to keep it alive for some time -- the trunk had broken some years past and he had taped it together -- but it always sat at a tilt after that, even though mother stacked books under each of the three stand legs.  It had a definite slant to it now giving the angel a slightly tipsy look.  Years of sticking the branches into the wooden stem had widened the holes.  The old tree just couldn't stand straight any longer, and the branches drooped.  Mom declared the tree officially dead and we threw it away.  I was over 20 years old.  For the first time, a fresh, live, green tree came into our house.  We set it in a stand, but it just wasn't the same.

I, however, was delighted with the fresh tree.  I grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania.  My father always cut a tall pine from our back woods.  I loved the odor of pine that permeated the house mingling with my mother's Christmas baking and cooking.  And I loved the blue lights that meant Christmas and family to me.

I, however, hated the tree.  The pine smell permeated every room in the house.  I couldn't escape it.  The branches were too thin and the bigger ornaments kept falling off.  The treetop was too tall and the old angel that had watched over our house every Christmas of my childhood had to be left off.  For me, that Christmas just wasn't the same.  I missed the old artificial tree.

The children were adults now.  When they moved into apartments of their own, I gave each of them ornaments from the tree to sort of "prime the pump" of their own traditions.  Sean took the angel, Leslie took the crystal swans and angels, Kim took the crocheted snowflakes, and of course we all have the Lifesaver figures.           

For the next 2 years I was sad when I would return home for our December 12th Christmas tree decorating.  I still missed the artificial tree. 
 
But slowly, I began to realize that Christmas was not a tree.  It was not the ornaments.  It was not the angel.  Christmas was in us.  Christmas was the gathering of family together to celebrate our past and future.  Just because one tradition was gone, didn't mean that the others that replaced them were bad or less, just new.  New memories could be built on top of old ones and Christmas would be just as great as always, because we were together as a family.

These are our family's traditions and memories.  Gathering on December 12th every year.  The musty smell of boxes from the cold garage.  Blue Christmas lights.  The smell of cinnamon bread and hot apple cider.  Last year’s comics.  Laughter ringing through the house, and our family decorating the tree and sharing memories.  Traditions are built in much the same way as the Israelite's built the memorial stones -- one upon another, to celebrate the constancy of family and God.

Traditions do more than bind families together.  They often point to a person or to an event of distinction.  For our family, both the person and the event is Christ.  It may have been my birthday upon which the tree was decorated, but it was His birthday that was the ultimate celebration.  So for today and tomorrow, when our grandchildren, and our great grandchildren ask, as did the children of the Israelites, "What do these things mean to you?"  It will be the opportunity of pointing them to the One who is not only the greatest Tradition, but also the greatest Gift.

Merry Christmas, Leslie.

Leslie

Merry Christmas, Mom.

Unison

Merry Christmas, everyone.