~~How Sweet and Clear~~

A Christmas Memory

My mind goes back across the years to our first Christmas in

our little poplar log cabin in Northwood, Saskatchewan.  I was

only a little lad, but no amount of years could ever blot it from

my memory.  Some weeks before Christmas, Mother became ill 

and had to be taken to the hospital.  Dad was away from home

 working with a railroad crew.  A blizzard prevented him from

reaching home with provisions for Christmas.  Things looked

pretty poor and bleak for us, isolated in our wilderness cabin.

But the spirit of Christmas was not to be denied.

We cut a little aspen tree (there were no evergreens in that

part of Saskatchewan) and set it up on the floor.  Rummaging in

the trunks, we found some Christmas decorations from our

homeland far across the seas.  Our Christmas dinner?  Well, we

didn't have many ingredients to work with.  The only food left

was flour, salt and corn syrup.  We cooked a porridge, "vatten grot",

using water, salt and flour.  We even mixed water with the

syrup to make it go further.  It was a good dinner!  The comfort

of having each other, despite cold and hunger, made it so.

After we had eaten, brother Hans, being the oldest, lined us up

around the Christmas tree according to age, down to the littlest

fellow.  Then we marched around the Christmas tree singing the

Christmas songs so dear to us from the homeland.

How meaningful and real Christmas was to us! 

 How sweet and clear 

the angelic message of God's good will toward His

children!  And it is ever so.  While there is nothing wrong with

making our homes as festive looking as possible, it still remains true

that the real joy and peace of Christmas is not dependent

on a wealth of material things.

"Where meek souls will receive Him still,

the dear Christ enters in."

Rev. Nels Norbeck of Montana,

wrote about his most memorable Christmas.

Connie