IN THEORY:

What’s your favorite Christmas memory? Share something that you felt really summed up the reason for the season.

My favorite Christmas memory is perhaps an amalgam of childhood Christmases.

My extended family always gathers together on Christmas Eve, and for a few years we held a “talent show” of sorts and each family would perform a song for the others.

My mother and father and two brothers and I performed “A Partridge in a Pear Tree” — complete with props! After stuffing myself with M&Ms;, cookies and candy canes we drove home in the dark.

The man on the radio shared a report that an Unidentified Flying Object was seen in the night sky, and my father was sure it was Santa.

Once home my parents tucked me into bed, but not before we set out the cookies and milk for Old Saint Nick, and carrots for the reindeer, of course.

Nothing was more exciting than waking up on Christmas morn with the lights glimmering on the tree, tangerines stuffed in the stocking, and a morning fire burning in the fireplace.

Rubbing my sleepy eyes, I’d rush to see what Santa had brought, check for a letter, and crawl up on my mother’s lap to open presents. It’s not so much the gifts I remember, as it is the warm feeling of family — mama and papa, Sarah, Seth and baby Billy gathered together complete in love.

The Rev. Sarah Halverson

Fairview Community Church

Costa Mesa

As a kid growing up in the ’50s I loved our holiday meals with my Uncle Harry.

He owned a chicken ranch in Arcadia, and every season we’d load up our ’47 Pontiac and I, my sister, brother, mom and dad would drive from Glendale to Arcadia. My uncle’s house was one of those sprawling mission-style California ranch houses with a huge avocado tree on the side and a separate garage.

Out behind his backyard were these long waist-high chicken cages built on a slant so the eggs would roll down into a narrow metal trough. At sometime during our stay we’d all walk out to the hatchery, and Uncle Harry would pull out a drawer exposing hundreds of little chicks just hatched.

Then after the meal we’d all open presents, and Uncle Harry would tell us stories about hunting mountain lions and mining silver in Tombstone, Ariz. Then I’d sit on my dad’s lap, and we’d play penny-ante poker until it was time to go home.

There is no substitute for family. If you don’t have one, find a spiritual home and build an extended one. Blessings to all!

Pastor Jim Turrell

The Center for Spiritual Living Newport-Mesa

Like most Americans, Christmas was a secular holiday in our family — you know, elves, reindeer, magical, but still secular.

In college I spent Christmas with a family that viewed it as a spiritual holiday. Gifts, stockings, great food all had their place, but at the center was a baby born to die. In the midst of family time and gifts and food, we read the Nativity story, sang, and then we attended candlelight services.

As much as I like all the trimmings of the season, they are all pretty selfish, about how I feel and what I get. Stopping to remember God’s gift to us reminds me that it is not about me, my family, nor my worship community.

It is about a God who loves us so much He would rather die than to live without us … and He did!

Ric Olsen

Lead pastor, The Beacon