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Every year when I was a child, my grandmother would give me a James Avery piece. We spent every Christmas at her house and she always had a real Christmas tree up with amazing decorations. I couldn’t wait to get my piece of jewelry (I didn’t know who James Avery was when I was a kid ) every Christmas.
When I was thirteen, my grandmother was found lifeless in her bed room and my mother had to give her CPR. Thankfully, she came back, but later found out that she had cancer and had to go through chemo. She went on to live three more years, but was too weak to do her usual tradition of a real Christmas tree, so she had an antique that fit in the corner of the room that had shelves. She would decorate it like a Christmas tree and every year that she survived, she always had a James Avery piece waiting for me Christmas Day. On the last Christmas she spent with us, she gave me a Celtic cross necklace by James Avery. I still have all the pieces she gave me. I hope to pass down all the pieces to my daughter and hope to start the same tradition with her.

My mother has been gone for 24.5 years. However, when I was a child, the week of Christmas, while my dad was at work, my mom would let me open 1 gift and we’d play with it. Then she’d rewrap it so my dad wouldn’t know. I miss my mom everyday. My dad died 4 years ago and I told him that story before he passed and he just laughed and said, “ that’s your mother.” I miss them both very much.

I grew up a military brat, my dad was in the Air Force. We were stationed in Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota. When I was 9, my Aunt had gotten married and her new husband came to the house. It had snowed a lot, like several feet. My mom and new uncle decided to build a snowman. They went outside and proceeded to roll the snow into an 8 foot snowman. They were having so much fun, they decided to continue building and turn the snowman into a snow slide. In the end, the snow slide was 56 feet long. The snowman had become the steps going up to the top of the snow slide. Every day, all of my friends in the neighborhood were at my house after school with their sleds. We even made it into the Air Force newspaper. Several years later, we lived in Oklahoma. It didn’t snow as much there, so one time when it did snow, we decided to replicate the snowslide. We built it 6 feet tall and 20 feet long and it also made the newspaper. To this day anytime we have snow in Louisiana, I will get my kids and grandkids and go outside and make a snow slide. A few years ago when we had a good snow, we built a slide that was 5 feet tall and about 10 feet long. By afternoon, it had warmed up and the yard on either side of the snow slide had turned to muddy mush. It ended up looking more like a mudslide. But it’s a fun memory that I have that I’ve passed down to my kids and now my grandkids. It will be something I do as long as there is snow.

One of my favorite Christmas memories is from the year we started celebrating Christmas again. It sounds weird, I know. Let me try to explain.

You see, my family has not always celebrated Christmas.

Oh, we did until I was 9 years old but then everything changed. That year my parents decided that for religious reasons, our family would no longer celebrate the holiday like the rest of the world. And it was very confusing.

I was a very compliant kid, so I kept all of my questions about their decision to myself. I did not know how to explain our family’s new perspective about Christmas to people who would ask, so I avoided it whenever possible. The best way I can describe my emotions during this time was I felt left out. I felt left out of the conversations among my peers regarding what they wanted Santa to bring them. I felt left out of giving or receiving gifts. And I felt left out of celebrations and programs at school that I wasn’t allowed to participate in. This period of our lives lasted for several years and at least for me, it didn’t get any easier.

But then fast forward to my junior year of high school. My parents had divorced, and my mom surprised my brother and I by saying that she wanted us to celebrate Christmas again. We were confused as to why she changed her mind but at the same time, thrilled! Our family dove headfirst into making homemade Christmas ornaments and decorating the tree with tinsel and sparkly lights. We watched holiday movies and drank hot cocoa and listened to Elvis sing Christmas songs as we drove around our neighborhood looking at the beautiful lights. And since it was the first year my brother and I would receive presents in a very long time, you better believe we made our lists and checked them twice! We could hardly wait for Christmas day to arrive and by hardly wait, I mean that we went snooping around our home for hidden gifts like impatient teenagers tend to do. We shopped until we dropped and squeezed every ounce of joy out of that wonderful time, but we also remembered Jesus is the reason for the season. We talked about His birth and we didn’t lose sight of what really mattered. I will never forget the wonder and excitement of that Christmas as I realized you can celebrate Christ and all the magic surrounding Christmas too.

Three years ago my mom and I started a James Avery Charm bracelet. We would go every month and pick out a charm. Our one bracelet turned into 2 bracelets, etc. Christmas 2 years ago our family surprised my mom with a Christmas charm bracelet. I got one as well. We have enjoyed filling our bracelets with meaningful charms. For the Christmas season we would take off our every day bracelets to wear our Christmas one. Last year when Christmas was over, we went to put up our Christmas bracelet to then start wearing our everyday ones again. We discovered hers had been lost. We looked everywhere and never found it. Remember at that time this was 2 years of going every month to buy charms. We went into the James Avery store a told the employees about not being able to find her bracelets. She made her purchase and we left the store. About 30 minutes later I received a call asking me to bring my mom back to the store. These wonderful people made her a bracelet with several charms on it. We will never forget the generosity of others. And yes, we continue to grow our bracelets and just added a new charm to our Christmas bracelets.