January 1, 2022 by Paul Silcock

Traditions Are What Make Memories Come Alive

I wondered the other day if my family holds onto traditions a little too tightly.

Traditions are nice, familiar, comfortable. They foster memories from the past that further entrench the traditions. Traditions also show up around special times of the year, making them even more memorable.

We have a tradition on Christmas Eve of having a special meal after our church Christmas Eve Service.

It first started when Lily and I lived in Edmonton. We would have chateaubriand for two at the La Ronde Restaurant at the top of the Chateau Lacombe.

It was a revolving restaurant so while we ate our meal we enjoyed a panoramic view of the city. We gazed over the river valley to see the Muttart Conservatory all lit up with Christmas lights, and later watched the glow of the city lights from the downtown buildings.

Every fifteen minutes or so the view completely changed. It was magical; it was beautiful. It was our tradition.

But when we moved to Kingston, there wasn’t a revolving restaurant above the city. In fact, we couldn’t find any restaurant in the city that was open Christmas Eve.

So instead, we kept our tradition alive by having a fondue. And for the last twenty-six Christmases that is what we have done. It has become a special time for our family and we have created great memories.

Sometimes we even recount events from them … like the time Lily set fire to the kitchen table trying to add fuel to an already flaming burner. It was a memory we all still tease her about.

And even that has become a tradition.

But there seems to be one tradition in our family that is a little over the top: Our kids have been out of the house for years, but for some reason, when they come home for Christmas and our Christmas Eve fondue, the seating arrangements must remain the same.

This tradition is a curious thing because we have one more family member who fits into the seating plan – Karlie’s husband, Matt.

When our kids were growing up, there was a shuffling of where Mike and I sat. But Karlie and Lily mostly sat in the same spots. When Karlie and Mike left home I changed my seat at the table to be closer to Lily.

… But apparently that seat is not available to me on Christmas Eve. It’s Mike’s seat.

I don’t really pay too much attention to where I sit. Wherever there’s a plate of food, that’s where I plunk down. But on Christmas Eve, both Karlie and Mike said they don’t feel comfortable unless they are sitting in their spots.

Poor Matt and I have to try to figure out where we should sit. It seems he and I don’t have a traditional spot yet.

I don’t think it really matters though, because I think he and I are of the same opinion: wherever there’s a plate of food set, that’s where we make a beeline for.

Here’s the thing: Everyone has traditions, especially at Christmas. Some of those traditions change over the years; some of them just evolve a little. But one tradition that should remain and not change at Christmas is the celebration of the One the holiday is for. We celebrate Christ, who came into the world, lived a sinless life and died for all our sins. He rose from the dead three days later and remains alive with God in heaven. This celebration should be a tradition and the focus of our hearts.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What is your fondest Christmas tradition? Leave your comments and questions below.

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December 18, 2021 by Paul Silcock

Christmas Tree Memories

From time to time I will repost an old article. This post is from December 2015, I hope you enjoy.

This morning I’m sitting in our family room looking at our Christmas tree. The lights from the tree and the winter village are the only lights that are on.

The tree lights draw my focus in and, as I sit quietly alone, I can’t help but reflect on what the tree represents.

I know that some people say that the Christmas tree is some pagan holiday symbol that we’ve stolen and now use as a symbol of Christmas. I don’t get too hung up on that because for years we sang hymns that had stolen their tunes from old bar songs.

It’s almost like hymn writers were the first “Weird Al Yankovic”. And if you don’t know who Weird Al is, don’t worry about it – it’s not important to my Christmas tree reflection.

To me this Christmas tree has become a burden and a blessing. And this year we decided to be done with the burden part.

You see, for the last 30 years Lily and I have exchanged Christmas decorations, and since our kids were born they also have received decorations. So let me do a little calculating here … that works out to 110 ornaments!

No wonder Lily sighs when she thinks about putting the decorations on the tree. But that’s nothing – our poor Christmas tree starts drooping in preparation for all that extra weight on its branches.

Let me tell you about the burden … These decorations are not just any decorations. They have to reveal something about the kind of year that person has had, or something memorable in that person’s year.

Like the year we vacationed without the kids, I got a small picture frame and added a picture of two people in beach chairs on a beach. The year the doctor told me my triglycerides were sky high, I went on a diet to get them down. Lily gave me a grapefruit ornament that said “the year of the grapefruit” to remind me of my progress.

At first I didn’t take this ornament giving too seriously. I think for the first four Christmases I got her a red ball decoration that said “our first, second, third … Christmas together”.

But that didn’t last. They don’t make “our 13th Christmas together” shiny hanging balls.

There were some dark years that I had to struggle to find a theme for the year. Eventually I ended up making many of my ornaments. That in itself took a lot of work.

It seemed sometimes that it was more work than it was worth. But on Christmas morning when Lily would open her gift, her reaction was always worth the effort I put into it.

But year after year it’s a burden, and there’s not much room on the tree anymore. I suggested that from now on we should just pick a ten year period and only put decorations up from that decade.

She didn’t like that idea. Instead, out of the blue one day, Lily said maybe we should stop giving ornaments to each other. I jumped at the suggestion and said, “Great idea; let’s stop.”

So I’m looking at the tree right now, with all its memories, because that’s what they are. The burden is over; I don’t have to make another ornament. But the blessing … the blessing of the memories that fill that tree will continue to bring comfort to my mind.

Here’s the thing: Remember special times in your spiritual life, like when you accepted Christ, when you made a spiritual breakthrough, how God met a need, how He helped you at a crucial time in your life. It’s those memories that will stay present with you, and give you comfort in the years to come.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What traditions do you have that bless you with great memories? Leave your comment below.

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August 25, 2020 by Paul Silcock

How Memories Are Triggered

It is interesting how an insignificant sight or sound can trigger all kinds of memories.

I don’t know if it happens to you but it happens to me all the time.

It can happen for me as easily as someone mentioning a word, and that word triggers a song in my head. I may not have heard that song for years, but the memory of it, the tune and all the words come back fully loaded into my brain.

The hard part is then trying to get that song off the playlist in my head.

The other day I was alone at work when it started raining. It was not just raining, it was like the heavens opened up and water was let loose.

You could hear the rain loud on the roof, and it just kept getting louder.

As I listened, I remembered an event back when I was a youth pastor, directing a junior high camp at which a lot of the kids from my church were attending.

That week the girls had been pulling all kinds of pranks on my guys. The strange thing was my guys had just been taking it all. No retaliation.

So half way through the week my assistant and I stormed into the cabin where my students were staying. We yelled, “What’s wrong with you guys?” The boys replied, “We’re just trying to be good.”

We shook our heads and said, “Well, don’t just take it from those girls; stand up for yourselves.”

They looked at each other, gave me that mischievous look, and we knew our work was done.

The next day at dinner time, the girls were all lined up, waiting outside the dining hall until the cooks let them in. They were in a line along the side of the building, talking and giggling.

I was chatting with the girls when I looked up at the top of the roof of the dining hall. There, on the crest of the roof, were five or six of my guys with buckets of water.

The cooks called me inside and insisted I get the boys off the roof. I told them the boys would be down in a minute. Then I went outside to see the show.

As my guys poured their buckets out on the roof, I watched the silent flow of water quickly moving down the shingles … until the water got to the edge of the roof which, by the way, had no eavestrough.

When the silent flow of water hit the edge it broke into a loud waterfall that came crashing down on the unsuspecting girls in line.

Dinner was delayed that night because of a needed clothing change.

The girls got it good.

… Isn’t that funny? That whole memory came back with just the sound of rain beating down on a roof.

Here’s the thing: Little things can trigger a thought about God. It might be a view of the lake or the sound of thunder. When that thought comes to your mind, don’t dismiss it or refocus on what you were doing. Take a moment to let your memory recall when God stood out to you in that context. Replay that tape. It will remind you of the character of God, who He is and help you feel closer to Him.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What things trigger memories for you? Leave your comments and questions below.

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April 18, 2017 by Paul Silcock

Relationships Come And Go

When you think about it, many of our relationships are short-lived.

People come into our lives for a period of time and then they leave again.

Though there are some relationships that we will have for all our lives, or for good portions of our lives, an abundance of our acquaintances are short-lived.

These relationships may not be completely gone from our lives, but they become more of a memory than an active connection that we keep.

I recently thought of this because, as the chaplain for an OHL team, the players are around for a maximum of four years and then they vanish from our lives.

As a pastor, I have experienced this in a variety of ways. I’ve worked with other pastoral staff who came into my life and then after a time left. When I was a youth pastor, I had teens in my ministry for about seven years and then they would start to leave for higher education or work.

With the transient nature of our society, there are always people coming into my church and then moving on to other places.

They say a church needs to grow by about 10% a year just to stay even because about 10% will be moving on each year.

… There is something about an old relationship that stays with you even after you lose contact and that is the memories.

It’s memories that keep a past relationship current in a small way.

For instance, I have some really good friends from back in my high school days that I don’t see much any more – some I haven’t been in touch with for years.

But I still feel like I have a connection with them, and that link is my memories.

Unless our memories fail us, even when we no longer have contact, there is still some semblance of an intact relationship.

This past week I said goodbye to a few of the Kingston Frontenacs who will be moving on from OHL hockey, and it was a sad parting.

They will be moving on to new things in different places; I won’t see them on a weekly basis. They were in my life for a time and now they’re gone.

But there are memories that will create a bond so that if our paths cross again our relationship can pick up where it left off.

When you think about it, memories are so important to a relationship. The more significant memories you build, the more connected you will remain, no matter how far apart you are, or how infrequent you have contact.

On the one hand, relationship do come and go. People are part of your life for a time and then they are not. But because of memories, they never really leave.

I guess the thing we need to concentrate on more than anything else is to have significant experiences with the relationships we have now. Then when that contact is gone, our memories will serve to keep our relationship active.

Here’s the thing: We should focus on having significant experiences with the Lord so that in those times when we feel alone, forgotten, or far away, our memories will serve to remind us that our relationship with God is current.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What past relationships do you have that are still vivid because of the memories you have? Leave your comments below.

December 3, 2016 by Paul Silcock

Thank Goodness The Christmas Season Has Begun

In the United States, Thanksgiving is the indicator that the Christmas season has begun. In my house it’s when the Christmas tree gets put up.

For some people, they start to get into the Christmas spirit when Advent starts – the four weeks when we anticipate the coming of Christ into the world. In churches a candle is lit, scripture is read and someone says something about the signs that Christ was coming.

Some people get into the Christmas spirit when they see snow on the ground. In some places that happens pretty early in the fall.

Others have that Christmas spirit for most of at least half the year. They start their Christmas shopping then too.

But honestly, I don’t think that any of that is really the Christmas spirit. They’re all just things we attach to a time of year. We like tradition.

Memories are powerful so when we see, hear, smell or touch something that brings back a memory, we relive that event. We can see it again in our mind and it brings some great emotions with it.

So the Christmas spirit has more to do with our memories and our emotions than it has to do with the coming of Christ.

All the generosity and kindness and brotherly love, it probably has its root in our feelings and not in the fact that Christ has come to save mankind.

Maybe the Christmas spirit has nothing to do with Christmas. Maybe we don’t need Christmas at all to experience all the good cheer we have at this time of year.

… Well, before we go too far down that road, we should investigate the real reason we have the kinds of memories we have at this time of year.

It’s this time of year that we identify as the time that God sent his Son to earth. That’s a pretty big deal in itself but not an incredibly emotional, memory-producing event.

What does create the emotional memory is why God sent Christ to us. God sent Christ to us as a gift to save us.

Down through the years people have received this gift of Christ and have been saved from their sins.

So when the time of year comes around when we remember Christ’s coming to us, the memories of the gift of Christ have brought all kinds of warm emotions that have resulted in expressions to others of generosity, kindness and brotherly love.

In our time, we have focussed more on the memory of the caring acts and so we respond in kind.

We attach the memories more to presents, festive happy gatherings, and acts of kindness to one another … but that is pretty superficial and temporal.

The real Christmas spirit should come when we realize that Christ is God’s gift to me, and that by receiving this gift I am forgiven of my sin.

That’s the real Christmas spirit. And that can influence your life and actions all year long. So actually, the Christmas spirit is not part of a season but part of who you are.

Here’s the thing: God sent His gift. If you’ve received this gift, then act like every day is Christmas. If you haven’t received the gift of Christ, do it now . . . Christmas is coming!

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What gets you thinking about Christmas? Leave your comments below.

December 29, 2015 by Paul Silcock

Christmas Tree Memories

This morning I’m sitting in our family room looking at our Christmas tree. The lights from the tree and the winter village are the only lights that are on.