A Christmas Meme

Author Tricia Goyer is hosting a meme this month so I thought I’d join in.

From Tricia: Here’s how it will work…post and answer the below questions on your blog or Facebook. Then either tag specific people or tag your readers/friends (so they will answer share and answer the questions too). Then hop over to my blog to fill out the linky. Easy. I’ll choose 10 winners to receive a 4 book Tricia Goyer prize pack***!

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Here are the MEME questions!

1. What’s your favorite holiday song?"Mary Did You Know"

2. What’s your favorite holiday tradition?

I really don't recall any "traditions" from growing up except that GrammaJ wrapped her gifts to me in colored wrapping paper and all the gifts (many, MANY gifts - see #6) from Santa in white tissue paper.

As for now, we have our last devotion of the Advent season with the whole family (including the folks and Uncle GrumpyPants and Uncle Pickle Nose) before we open gifts. We each read Scriptures about gifts God has given to us. Then we ponder the strange, selfish and bizarre fact that it is HIS birthday, yet we are the ones getting gifts - from Him and from each other. We take a few moments to pray silently, then we each write on a 3x5 Card a "gift" we want to give to the Lord for the coming year. We fold it in half, then write our name on the outside and it goes in a gift box under the tree.
After Christmas, I pack the gift box away (without peeking at what anyone wrote). The next year, as our devotion time starts, I pass out the old "gifts" so that we can all consider how well we kept our promises. (If someone is only with us for one year and not the next, I mail their card back to them.)

Once all the "gifts" are in the box, we sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus. It is my favorite Holiday tradition because it really helps us all to focus on Jesus instead of on materialism and greed.

3. If you could travel one place with an elderly family member where would you go?

Travel with them? Ack! You're scaring me! :-O

To be perfectly honest, shopping in a nearby city is about as far as I'd want to travel with any of our 3 remaining parents... (No offense to them!)

4. What questions would you ask?

We're quite close to our folks now and see them all the time. I think they've told us pretty much everything by now. I never knew my grandparents at all and the BHE's are long gone. However, if the BHE's paternal grandmother (aka "Great Gram) was still alive I'd love to interview her about EVERYTHING. I got to know her in a small way when the BHE and I were dating and we visited her a few short times in the early years of our marriage. She was a cheerful, colorful old lady and we loved her dearly. It makes me sad that Girly-Girl and Silly-Head never got to meet her.

5. What is a non-tangible gift have you received from an elderly relative?

Wonderful examples of endurance and faith in God.

6. What is the best/worst/strangest gift you’ve received from an elderly relative?

Hmmm. Tough one. I've never really had any elderly relatives and the BHE and I didn't think of our folks as "elderly" until the past 5 years or so (They are, all three, in their early 70's).

Keeping that in mind: The BEST gift we've gotten from our folks (most notably from GrammaJ) has been date money for our birthdays (The BHE and I celebrate our birthdays only 3 weeks apart) and for our anniversary. It has been wonderful to be able to go out and enjoy each other sans kiddos even when the budget was tight. That's a gift we have determined to pass on to our adult children.

WORST? GrammaJ had an unhappy childhood with few, if any gifts. Consequently gifts mean alot to her. A. LOT. She likes to get them and she LOVES to give them. It makes no difference to her that the gifts she feels compelled to give are, at all, wanted or necessary. Over the years she has given the BHE a weird buttoning towel thing that he was supposed to wear after a shower. We use it to dry the car. She also bought him too small swim trunks (They were a "good" brand and she got a deal) and she has bought us, as a family, innumerable manicure sets, bath poofies (which none of us use...), and various other personal care items. She's also bought "toys" like model airplanes for the BHE or a baby doll for me. She still cannot fathom that we don't want gifts - and lots of them. She is sweet and generous and means well, but sometimes it borders on the ridiculous!

And that's not to say that she hasn't come up with some wonderful gifts over the years. It's just that she wants so badly to bless us all with what she didn't have that she tends to go WAY overboard!

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From Tricia: On December 22nd ten people who have filled out the linky will be selected at random to win one of the ten 4-book prize packs. You can either have it sent to yourself or a friend. To enter all you have to do is answer the MEME on your blog and then fill out the linky on this post. Easy.

Then be sure to pop over and read the other MEMEs on the linky – let’s celebrate our elderly loved ones!

Everyone who visits is tagged I hope you will join in! Have a wonderful day!