This year, perhaps more than in decades, we hope that families will consider the true meaning of the holidays.

 

Christmas, to me, is so much more than what's wrapped up in a gift box - it's the smells of home cooking, the gleeful anticipation of the children, sharing stories and memories that only your relatives can really understand, and laughing til your belly hurts.

 

My own favorite holiday memories include sitting by the fireplace after I helped Daddy bring in the firewood, the Christmas tree twinkling, and waiting anxiously for my grandparents to arrive! I barely remember the presents I got, but I have a vivid memory of seeing my Grandmother's fiery red her tucked under a fashionable fur hat as she came in the door, and my other Grandma toting a huge bag full of her famous fruitcakes and big plates of cookies she'd been baking for days. 

 

I also remember vividly the Christmas I was 6 months pregnant with our daughter, Jessica. We were in the midst of a terrible energy crisis, and I had talked my mom into getting a wood stove to help with her heating bill. Well she figured as much as she spent on it, that was going to be her heat so her brand new house must have been 50 degrees that Christmas morning, except in the family room where the wood stove was. Mike and I spent the night at Mom's and I remember how hard it was to sit on the hearth with my rounded belly, the only warm place in the house, and I still shiver when I see the pictures from Christmas 1980. I remember thinking how fun Christmas would be when I had my own little boy or girl to spend the next Christmases with. And over the next few years my parents learned to burn the stove perfectly.

 

I remember all the devious tricks that Mike and Jessica dreamed up, from 2 years old to about 12, trying to catch evidence of Santa's visit. The greatest was the year the big guy left sooty footprints from the fireplace right over to the Christmas tree. He sure did have some big dirty feet!

 

The Christmas that makes me the most thankful is the year my husband survived a terrible accident, and the woodstove saved our Christmas. December 15, 1998 Mike fell 30' off of a chimney, breaking several vertebrae and teeth in the fall. They called a minister in to talk to us at the hospital, and told me he may never walk again. Well they underestimated him and had him up and about in no time, and he was home for Christmas. We had a terrible snow storm that closed down everything on December 23 that year, and we were homebound. As luck would have it, the power went off and there was just us and the woodstove. We fired up the stove, cooked ham and biscuits, fried apples and eggs - our traditional Christmas breakfast - right there on the stove top. Yep, I figured out how to cook biscuits in a frying pan.

 

My Christmases just happen to have so many nice memories around the fireplace, and I'm so pleased to still be in the fireplace business all these years later.

 

So please, give a gift to yourself: promise to lighten up this year; nobody will remember if the silverware matched or the dressing was a little dry, they'll remember dad wrecking the unicycle or the year all the grandkids glimpsed Santa outside their grandmother's window. It's PRESENCE, not presents; it's the time spent together that builds the memories we'll truly cherish.

 

 

 

I found this lovely fireplace photo, chock full of safety hazards! Let's review what's wrong here so you can take a look around your home for potential fire safety problems:

• There's no fireplace screen in use. A sturdy screen helps prevent stray sparks and keeps guests and pets a safe distance from the fire.
• The tinsel, stocking and electric holiday lights are way too close to the fireplace. A stray spark or simple constant heat will surely melt or ignite these items over time.
• Ditto with the gifts and the firewood on the hearth. One popping spark could cause a dangerous home fire! 

   

  
  More safety tips to keep in mind