In a little town called North Pole, Alaska, it is hard to imagine it not feeling like Christmas at Christmas.  Fifteen miles from Fairbanks, stands this Christmas Village complete with a Santa Claus House and reindeer (the real one’s).  My family spent fifteen years in North Pole.  We loved the cold weather, loved the people, and we loved Christmas. 

My mom thoroughly enjoys entertaining, baking all the Christmas goodies and pies, and loves on those grandbabies.  My dad is a true Santa.  He always has a surprise up his sleeve every year.  My parents taught me and my sister to love the Christmas holiday.  Our family even created the “Seven Days Before Christmas Stocking Stuffers.”  Every morning, starting seven days before Christmas, each one of us would get to open up little gift.  Sometimes we could even talk our Dad into letting us open up one Christmas present on Christmas Eve.  I don’t ever remember a bad Christmas, and I know my parent couldn’t always buy us everything we wanted, but somehow it never mattered.

But December 25, 2000, found my parents lonely and not in a party mood at all.  Two years before, my husband and I had moved to Florida (now that’s a long drive!). At the beginning of the year, my sister had married and moved to Michigan.

My sister and her husband made plans to drive to Florida, but my parents could not afford to come from Alaska.  Plane tickets average $1200 a piece, and driving would take two weeks.

My mom and even my dad got choked up on the phone.  My mom swore to me that they would never ever be alone for Christmas ever again.  My sister and I attempted the big job of trying to duplicate my mom’s extravaganza Christmas feast, with only mild success.

Our little family of my dad, my mom, me, and my sister have spent our whole lives living under the same roof or a few miles away.  The one exception is when I went to college.  I only made it six months and moved back home.  Other then that, we all had spent little more then two weeks away from each other. 

That very next year, my parents moved to Michigan, near my sister.  They bought ten acres, and decided to build their very first home from the ground up.  To pay for it, they knew they would have to live in their 1973 motor home—talk about a bucket of bolts on wheels.

That first year, the wind was able to find every nook and cranny not sealed, and blow the wind in.  But when it came time for Christmas, Mom and Dad loved being with their youngest daughter and her husband.  But it still wasn’t good enough.  My parents “demanded” that we be there in Michigan with all of them the following year, and we set the plan in motion.

Christmas of 2002 was incredible.  It is a Christmas that I’ll remember forever, but not for the reasons you might think.  My parents did not have enough money to finish their house, and so they had built an enclosed pull barn that held their rickety  motor home.  My dad (a Macguiver) had fixed up heat and lighting.  They had even managed to fix a private lean-two for my husband and I.  The pull barn was not warm, and the lightening was at the romantic level which would have been nice if we were only trying to eat there.  Every morning we would bundle up and sip our coffee and chat.  My mom makes Martha Stewart look inept.  She hung garland and white lights through the barn.  She had even made a little makeshift mantel where stockings were hung.  Her Christmas tree that had looked larger then life in our old house, looked tiny and small, but so sweet. 

The kids would run out and play in the snow.  We did not have any snow clothes living in Florida, so my mom and dad ran out to the Salvation Army Store and suited them up.  My dad had a blast being his “Papa” self, and aggravating and teasing my now six and four year old little boys.  Mom made some of our favorite meals, and spoiled us rotten.  Mom cried as we brought our new little girl we had added to the family.

She said, “I’m not going to get her to love me like your boys do.”

I promised Mom that I would do everything in my power to make Shelby know how wonderful her “Mawmaw” was.  After all, that job wouldn’t be hard at all.

The other beauty was my sister’s first baby.  He was a fussy baby, but none of us minded, and we all took turns jostling little two week old Gavin around.

Because everyone had chipped in helping us with tickets to get there, we knew the presents would not be as much as we would all want.  Did we care?  Absolutely not! 

Christmas morning arrived and we squished around and watched the kids opening the presents.  They thought Santa had sprinkled all kinds of amazing things down that chimney. 

I can honestly tell you, I don’t remember a thing any of us received or gave.  That had nothing to do with that amazing Christmas.  We still talk about it.  It is my favorite Christmas that I have ever had.  Then it struck me.  The place doesn’t matter.  It is the people and the fellowship that matter.

It was the same on Jesus first Christmas, his birthday.  People wonder why a stable, and I say why not?  My sister had a completed house, but we chose to stay with my parents because that was Christmas.  The people who were there is what made Christmas, Christmas.

I’m imagining the baby Jesus, his parents, the angels, the shepherds, the farming pets—wow!  It was in a barn—so what!  I had a Christmas in a barn once, and what a Christmas it was!