Beloved Readers,
My favorite part of the holiday season is Christmas Eve. When I was a little girl, I talked my mom into letting us siblings exchange our gifts with one another on Christmas Eve. My mom was skeptical and reluctant at first, but she allowed it, and it was so much fun that it became a tradition—one I continued into marriage and the raising of our three sons. Now it is flowing into the grandchildren’s lives.
We always aim to have a big meal on Christmas Eve, although that works best in movies, so we often settle for a simple meal and relaxing around the hearth before opening presents around the tree.
For Christmas 2016, my family and I anticipated welcoming two new people into the fold. A grandson was due December 21. And our youngest son was coming in from New York, bringing home his girlfriend for us to meet for the first time. The season promised to be fun and filled with love and the beginning of making of new bonds.
In preparation for all the excitement and fun, my middle son, Adam, his wife, Erin, and their two little ones went to Kinsey Family Farm to cut a fresh tree. After a hayride, they picked out a tree, cut it with a handsaw, and dragged it back to the hay wagon. While waiting for the workers to wrap it up, they enjoyed a campfire, made s’mores, and drank hot chocolate.
A few days later Erin and I met at our favorite coffee shop to do more brainstorming on The Gift of Christmas Past. Devising a story that is unique and moving takes time. It requires long discussions that dig deep into the heart and mind of who each character is and why.
In real life it’s no easy feat coming to a place of understanding ourselves and those we love most. Our depths are endless and our shallowness is challenging. The same is true of characters—except there is a word limit we have to stick to as we share who someone is. Only as their lives unfold on the page do we truly begin to realize the beauty and pain, the strengths and weaknesses, of who they are.
We knew we’d need to make a trip to the town where our characters lived. This was the second of three books Erin has coauthored with me, and we always stay in the town and state of the setting. But we couldn’t go to Asheville, North Carolina, immediately. Erin’s due date was too close.
We returned to our homes, ready to enjoy the stress and excitement of the Christmas season. But as it turned out, that beautiful and fun-to-get tree was about all that went as planned.
Erin’s third baby, Silas, entered the world on December 22, a healthy, beautiful baby boy. But Erin came down with the flu, and it ran rampant through all of the Woodsmall households in Georgia. I stayed healthy the longest and used that time to help as needed…because that’s what a Mimi does. By New Year’s Eve all the wrapped gifts were still under the tree. It would soon be time for Tyler and Shelby to return to New York, but I’d hardly spent time with either of them!
As time moved on, harder things shook the family…and they weren’t just a matter of getting over the flu. But Erin and I went to Asheville anyway, with two husbands and three kids. I wasn’t sure how well our research time would go with the little ones, but our time there was blessed, and the trip felt magical.
Rarely does everything go as we planned. Sometimes nothing goes as planned. But God is love, and we see that through the gift of His Son.
Love fills us. Hope prods us to keep moving forward. As we slip into the shoes of others, seeing life as they see it and feeling life as they feel it, our minds and hearts are opened to more of who God is, more of the struggles and pain that beg all of us to have compassion. An open heart receives more love, more hope, and more understanding. That’s the cycle I want to repeat in my life. It seems to me that’s the cycle God has called us all to.
I hope you have a Merry Christmas. But even if nothing goes the way you expected, if difficult things happen, I hope you’ll find a way to walk in love, hope, and understanding of people and of our short but precious time on this earth.
Cindy
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