The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.

Grandchildren Make It Special

by Dessa Rodeffer, Quill Publisher/Owner

15 December 2005

Christmas is a time we often think of grandparents and grandchildren...it's a special bonding time for each.

I'm not sure if grandchildren talk more easily to their grandparents at this time because they are not threatened with statements like, "if you aren't good there will be no toys," or because grandparents have learned patience over the years from raising kids.

I read once that grandparents and grandchildren get along well because they have a mutual enemy.

As I look back over my early Christmases, it always included a trip to my grandparents and it was the highlight of the winter season for me, my brothers and my cousins.

We loved to go to Grandpa and Grandma's farmstead near Olena.

After they moved to the farm, my parents, who had become grandparents, took over the Christmas feast with our grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins traveling into town to our home. It wasn't quite the excitement that we enjoyed at our grandparents home and I'm sure it was partly because we were growing older. Sometime along the way, I became the one to have the Christmas feast.

In 1992, I became a grandmother for the first time. Now, I have fourteen grandchildren and it seems the anticipation is mounting when talking to my two oldest ones, Drew and Ali.

There has been some talk about gifts, but I feel they mostly enjoy the preparations of making he cookies, and putting up the tree, and just being with family.

In a world where computers are outdated faster than they can be shipped, and where technology is faster than ever, it's especially nice to see that the most important thing to our family is still the birth of the savior, and being together with family to share the true meaning of that birth.

The traditions of cookie baking, of gift exchanges, of greeting cards, may keep changing in your families, but the Bible, and the story of the birth of the tiny baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger bed, is timeless and precious to all of us.

For grandchildren and grandparents, it's nice to know there is something stable that will remain with us as we move through the years.

Although it is not necessary that we string the lights, decorate the Christmas trees, and bake the cookies, or even give the gifts, when we do these things, we are spending time with people we care about and love, and it makes each feel like they are special. In a world that has so much loneliness and sorrow, cookie baking, story telling, and singing songs is a sure way to lift the spirits.

The excitement during the holidays for me and my grandchildren is that we spend extra time together, and the anticipation of the arrival of our loved ones during this holy season.