I've been run into all month by memory.  I pulled out the ornaments made by great grandma and all of a sudden there she was sitting in her house with the stuffed monkeys and no air conditioning in hot Colorado summer, her white hair fluffed and waved.  I remember old hershey's kisses, I remember her rose garden and her raspberries and her rascally husband.  Learning how to ride a bicycle in the parking lot across from her house.  Splashing in the irrigation ditches.  Lying in my sweat at night and trying to spread my body out, trying not to touch anything because I was afraid of baking in that bed with the hot air pressed all around.

I played Dean Martin while I was baking and I was gone again.  This time in her daughter's home and I am kneeling at the hutch holding the stereo.  I am turning it up because it's our song, Ain't That a Kick in the Head, and I am falling in love with Dean for the first time.  There are stale candy orange slices and Little Debbie snacks and cheese balls in that hutch too.  I have already fallen in love with those.  And he lives in this home too- my grandpa with the blackest slicked hair, the jean overalls and the wonderful voice.  I love his voice.  I love his short thumbs.  I love his old truck.  I once watched him pound a dent out of the door of his car with his fist.  With that same fist he played endless games of thumb war with me and he hardly ever let me lose.

I got out the family recipe books and there she was.  My beautiful grandma.  Just last week my aunt told me that she was short-- shorter than me, but in my memory she is tall and thin and fancy.  I wore her pearls to my Christmas Party.  I wore lipstick too because she always wore lipstick with her pearls.  She always wore lipstick.  I remember her best in the kitchen, though.  She sewed me aprons when I was small that matched hers.  She taught me the value of making things that take time and the value of lard for a good pie crust.  She loved playing cards and a large dinner party.  I loved watching her.  I don't remember conversations with her by I do remember how I loved watching her.  

I read The Christmas Story to the good news club and I was rushed by all of Christmas at once.  Rushed by the Jesus stories I have read, promising myself to read the Chesterton passage when I get home, promising to thank Him again.  I am struck by the memorializing inside this season, by its artifacts.  This is the month we tell The Story that has been told for ages.  This is the month we pull out memories, ornaments, traditions, recipes and we gather.  I am maybe more in love with December this year than I have ever been.  I am stunned that He thought to give Himself to us, yes.  But I am even more stunned by the unending memory birthed in Christmas.