I can remember back to when I was a little boy. Many of my memories revolve around my Grandma Rose and time spent on the farm with her. So many memories filled with snow and Christmas and life on the farm.
I can remember that Grandma Rose would always buy a copy of the Ideals Christmas, which is published by the Ideals Company out of Nashville, TN. Each year we would look through the publication and it was filled with Christmas stories, recipes, poems, and songs. I can remember Grandma reading me these stories. It was a very joyful time for me each year.
As what happens with most of those, I grew older and it was no longer “cute” to me to go through that publication each year. Grandma would continue to get the publication each year, but at some point, I stopped looking at it. It stopped becoming “cool” to go through it with Grandma and have her read the stories and poems to me. It certainly was not appealing to me to sing the Christmas songs found in the book. Over time, it was just something I no longer had interest in. This all happened over 30 years ago and the memories that came from that publication had left my mind completely.
Fast forward to two months ago. I was going through the Christian Book catalog, looking for Advent devotionals for the upcoming season and then I saw it. The 2017 edition of the Ideals Christmas publication. I was completely shocked. I had no idea that they even still published this. I guess that was foolish thinking since it has been around for so long. It had just completely left my radar, until now. I was completely stopped in my tracks. I immediately ordered it and when it came in the mail later in the week, I went through it and was flooded with memories. What had grown “boring” and “no longer cool” in my younger years, was now filling my soul with the wonder and excitement of Christmas. It was amazing to me all over again. It is amazing how things can come around again and be completely different to us depending on our mindset when we look at them.
I have now officially fallen in love with the Ideals Christmas publication all over again. I am sad that it took so long, because this is the first Christmas without Grandma Rose and I can no longer share the joy of this publication with her, but I can share it with my son, Matthew. That is exactly what I will be doing this Christmas season and for many more to come. Until he no longer finds it “cool” and then it will be just me reading it, just like it was for Grandma. That is how the circle of life goes isn’t it? Who knows, maybe someday, when Matthew has long since grown up and moved away, he too will come across this publication again, just like I did, and he will share it with his children someday. Pretty cool to imagine.
In today’s blog I want to share with you one of the poems I found in the 2107 edition of Ideals Christmas. I can’t remember exactly what year it was, but I remember my fascination with sleigh bells. I had grandma help me find some sleigh bells and we worked together to attach those bells to the harness of one of our ponies. We then attached a sled to the back of the harness and I remember going all over the farm on that snowy day with the sounds of sleigh bells all along the way. It was a great memory locked away deep in my heart and was brought back when I read this poem. What a great time of year to look back and remember Christmas as a kid and all the wonderful memories that remind us of how special it was. I want to share that poem with you here:
Sleigh Bells
By Elma Helgason
Our modern ways of travel
Are surely swift and grand;
We dash about in comfort
By air or sea or land.
But sleigh bells softly ringing
Across the drifted snow;
Remind me of the journeys
Of Christmas long ago.
And oft there comes before me
A picture from the past;
Where dear ones in a farmhouse
Heard sleigh bell sound at last.
I see the ponies plodding
Through miles of drifted snow;
And faces at a window
Alight with lamplight glow.
And in the frosty twilight,
The tinkling bells sound sweet;
With sound of sliding runners
And crunch of horses’ feet.
Through weeks of isolation
In wintry storm and blast;
The sound of tinkling sleigh bells
Meant company at last!
In spite of modern travel,
It sets my heart aglow;
To hear the sound of sleigh bells
Across the miles of snow.
