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For the
main image click the thumbnail to the left. For the YouTube video
version, click the link below: http://youtu.be/1dOgTXpY1Xo As I suited up for the day one morning last week, Ralph Stanley’s "I'm Going Home, It's Christmas Time" was playing. The words put my thoughts back 50 years, to Christmas as a child, and I recalled the red and white striped Christmas pajamas that Little Brother Brian and I used to wear on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. My Mother kept those pajamas and years later gave them to me, and I’ve kept them in a drawer ever since. I pulled them out, for old time sake, and as I held them my mind drifted back to that time... back to Charlotte, on Somerdale Lane… 1963. In my reverie I walked right into the middle of Christmas morning! My Father had been playing his Gibson classical guitar and he held it at his side as he turned toward me and smiled. Grandfather Dellinger and Mother were seated, drinking coffee and looking over the Lionel electric train set that Santa had left for me. Little Brother Brian jumped up and reached for my hand while sweet little Sister Jan, rocking in her brand new red rocking chair, continued singing her version of “Rolling In My Sweet Baby’s Arms.” Sport, our first dog, was stretched out on the floor in front of me. I felt more happiness, and wonder, than I ever thought possible. And there, kneeling on the floor near the chimney, focused on his new train, was me as a little boy… wearing a cowboy hat and red and white striped pajamas… the same red and white striped Christmas pajamas that I was holding in my hand! For a couple of beautiful moments we were all together again, and it was so real… |