Each Christmas has been different, treasured and favored. When I look back over the Christmas’s I’ve experienced, there’s a variety of emotion that come into play.

There were those first Christmas mornings, the very first I remember when I awakened to find gifts under a small live Christmas tree decorated carefully with tinsel and ornaments I grew to love over the years. I don’t remember a Christmas in those early years when my grandparents weren’t there.

Then, in 1971, Christmas arrived in a rush at the last minute and was stolen away by the angel of death, when he carried my grandfather home to Jesus. I remember presents being left unopened, stashed away in the closet when company was coming. The tree, put up so carefully the night before came down in a rush on Christmas morning. There was no time to celebrate.

The holidays that followed for a few years were anything but happy… Grandma cried for several years, each Christmas when we celebrated, Grandma would quietly slip away into her room and let the tears fall. I didn’t understand then, but now I do.

There were Christmas’ with cousins too many to count strewn around our home, with sleeping bags on nearly every flat surface.

Then, as a grown up, I celebrated differently.

With children of my own, the day was a jumble of planning, buying and providing. So much I had to do. There were holidays that passed without much celebration, just some honor for the King. The seasons were treasured, each for their own reason, and celebrated because that’s what people do in our family. We celebrate Christmas. It’s important enough to make special!

But Christmas is about gifts and giving too.

There’s been one special gift I’ve asked for through the years, some years, I’ve received it, but more often than not… I’ve been left wishing I’d received that gift.

I’ve been told everyone has *that gift request* and it isn’t always an easy request to fulfill.

So, what is your *secret gift request*? What is it that you ask Santa for every year, and sometimes you get it, sometimes you don’t, but every single year, it is your heart’s desire to have — at least for Christmas?

Leave a note and share your thoughts.