One of my favorite memories of Christmas is the baking. As far back as I can remember we’ve always baked a lot around Christmas. Cookies, breads, candies, pies, cakes, and even a few gingerbread houses we’d make. One lady that we gave a gingerbread house to kept it for months because she said it was so pretty. She even put it on display at her restaurant.
My Mom is an excellent cook. She always lets us kids help her, even my brothers. We weren’t always the best helpers, sometimes we were more work than help, but she never told us we couldn’t help. One time when we were making pies my younger sister was pouring the water in; the lid came off the pitcher and dumped five cups of water into the flour/Crisco. We made pies and pies and more pies.
We didn’t just bake for ourselves. We’d pick out different people to give to. It would be Sunday school teachers, Awana teachers, neighbors, friends, relatives, or someone who had been extra nice to us and we wanted to show our appreciation. One year we made little stockings and filled them with homemade cookies and passed them out to the policemen in our city.
Christmas memories are to be enjoyed just like baking. But just like there are reasons behind the memories we keep there is a reason behind all the baking we do. We use it to give to others. To show others that we appreciate them. To illustrate the way Christmas should be: to give and not to receive.