{"id":2223,"date":"2018-12-21T03:00:01","date_gmt":"2018-12-21T09:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kerryaclark.com\/blog\/?p=2223"},"modified":"2018-12-20T23:25:44","modified_gmt":"2018-12-21T05:25:44","slug":"christmas-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kerryaclark.com\/blog\/christmas-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"The Christmas Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you write a special Christmas message for a decade or more, you wonder what can you say this Christmas. \u00a0This was my thinking until I had this idea on how to make my Christmas memorable. Let me explain and hopefully you can do the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why an experience?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As we celebrated Christmas a few years ago, I asked the family to go around the table and recall gifts from their childhood that they could remember getting (<\/span>from Santa<\/span><\/a>). \u00a0To my surprise, we couldn\u2019t remember as many gifts as we thought we could. \u00a0Instead, each person shared a memory they held onto and may have included a gift. \u00a0It was the experience that they remembered most, not the actual gift. Go figure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"I\u2019ll share one. \u00a0My brother, who is older, figured out “this Christmas thing” before I did. \u00a0One Christmas I knew I saw Santa and in fear I pulled my head back under the covers. \u00a0My brother later told me it was our dad who just happened to be wearing his old red jogging suit. \u00a0Leave it to my brother to ruin Christmas for his younger brother. If you know him, he’s a straight-shooter. \u00a0The point is this; I remember what I saw and the experience to this day.<\/span><\/p>\n

When younger others make the experience for us.
\n<\/span><\/em>Here’s another, I remember the special <\/span>gum-drop tree<\/span><\/a> our grandmother would make for us each year. \u00a0There was no way I\u2019d ever eat one of these gum-drops stuck to the branches of the homemade tree, but the experience has lasted throughout my lifetime and well after hers.<\/span><\/p>\n

One more, I recall my grand-aunt Kaye (Aunt Peewee) she\u2019d give us a Christmas package each year and in the wrapping we\u2019d find a pack of tube-socks. \u00a0At the time, we didn\u2019t want tube-socks for Christmas, but because she gave them to us we wore them at some point during the year. While the gift was strange to us then, it\u2019s the experience that we cherish and remember many years later.. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As we age, it becomes less of an experience because the lack of others\u2019 intervention.<\/em>
\nYou see as we become adults, we have to take on more and more responsibility to making Christmas experiences. \u00a0The gift-giving is but a small and many times insignificant part of Christmas.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are a few ways we make an experience of Christmas:<\/span><\/p>\n