Christmas Essay Contest 2022

My Favorite Christmas Memory

WELCOME READERS!

It’s wonderful to read to special Christmas memories that were submitted by area children this year. Like the adults, family seems to be at the heart of the precious memories for our children.

This section features the winning submissions along with all the essays we received this year. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we have. May the true spirit of Christmas be with your family this holiday season!

Christmas Essay

Contest Judges:

Jocelyn Engle serves as the Publisher for the Merchandis ers, Advertisers, Pennysavers, Lancaster County Magazine and Where & When PA. The third generation in her family’s busi ness, she returned to EPC in 2005 after graduating from East ern University with a BA in marketing and management. She currently serves on the Central Market Trust Board, the Lan caster Chamber Women in Business Mentor Program Advisory Group and is actively involved in Girls on the Run. She resides in Lancaster City and loves the vibrant downtown atmosphere, as well as everything the county has to offer. When she’s not working, Jocelyn is an avid runner who also enjoys reading, weekend getaways to the beach and hanging out with friends.

Kiana Marti graduated from J.P. McCaskey High School in 2020. She also received the International Bacca laureate Diploma upon graduation. She is currently an undergraduate student at West Chester University majoring in Integrative Biology and minoring in Psychology. Kiana also runs her own marketplace on an app called Depop. She launched in 2018 and has sold over 1,100 pieces. Her hobbies include hiking and thrifting.

Joanna Gruber has been a copy editor with Engle Printing & Publishing Co., Inc. since 2013. She grew up in southern Lan caster County and earned a Bachelor of Arts from Elizabeth town College.

Ryan Hernandez Age 12 Birdsboro

Favorite Christmas Memory

Alice McFarland Age 11 Honey Brook

My Favorite Christmas Memory

favorite Christmas memory happened the day after Christmas in 2014 when my little brother and sister were born. I was astonished when I found out that I was going to be a big brother in May 2014. It seemed like forever until the day of their arrival. That morning, I was waiting and waiting to go to my grandmother’s house because my mom and dad were at the hospital. When I did I was so excited and a little nervous. When my grandmother took me to the hospital she told me, “Are you ready?” I said, “Ready for what?” “To be a big brother!” “Oh, yeah I’m ready.” To be honest I kinda wasn’t. When we got there we waited for what seemed like days but eventually they let us in and I was so nervous. I don’t know why. They were so small and light I asked my mom what they named them and she said,”Madison and Mason.” Even though they weren’t named Sasha and Hector (my choices), I was fine with Madison and Mason. When we got home I was ready to open presents for my mom, dad, for the babies, and me of course, but the best presents came home in little car seats.

My

My favorite Christmas memory revolves around the tradition my fam ily has followed through the generations of gathering together to decorate Christmas Cookies. One particular year, my grammy invited all of the grandchildren to a sleepover before our annual cookie decorating party (which my grammy has been doing since she was a little girl!). Once we were all situated, our poppop asked if we wanted to make the christ mas cookie cut-outs. We all said, “yes”, so Poppop thawed the dough while my grammy got the cutters. All the kids took turns cutting out as many cookies as we could. My cousins and I had such a great time baking with our grandparents and when the cookies were out of the oven, we were allowed to eat some of the burnt or broken cookies. To finish up our super fun night, we watched three Home Alone movies in a row!

Afterwards, we went to bed, and when we woke up around 8 in the morning, there was a table with pancakes, orange juice, bacon, and my aunts, uncles, grandparents, and parents. We all talked about our Christ mas plans and when we will meet up to see each other again. After break fast, we got out the icing and sprinkles and the cookies we made the previous night. All our cookies were delicious and beautiful but my Auntie Mo’s cookies were perfect. We all enjoyed being with each other and probably took it for granted. Now that my Auntie Mo isn’t with us anymore and my Uncle John is divorced, it is super special to have those memories. Christmas is about family being together and keeping the magic of tradition alive. That is my favorite Christmas memory.

Parsons Age 14 Narvon

My favorite Christmas Memory

My favorite Christmas memory, this was a challenging question to answer. I have so many special memories that I could recall. I thought about white Christmas’ of the past, and when I received Hershey Park tickets but I think my most favorite Christmas memory would be last year because it was the last Christmas I had with my grandmother. She suffered heart failure in February 2022 and passed away.

My grandmother shared every Christmas with me and my family. She would wake up early to watch us open our presents. She was a great cook and always made fantastic Christmas dinner. She would always make sure to have sparkling grape juice for my sister and me.

My mom-mom loved to decorate! She had a collec tion of inflatable outside decorations. My favorites were the snowman and his family, the Grinch with Max and a giant Santa. She also had a ceramic Christmas tree she made, that she let me put the little lights in every year. She always had a sparkly Christmas Sweater or shirt to wear during the Christmas season. I will always remember our last Christmas together and her excitement for the season.

Emma

Ella Benz Age 13 Elverson

My Favorite Christmas Memory

My eyes widened in awe, we went to see them every year but they still seemed to amaze me. Red, green, blue, pur ple, any color you can think of were glowing proudly. For the houses, it was like a competition, which house shines brightest, looks best, and which one was most creative.

We were stationed in Florida at the time, we were constantly moving around because dad was in the navy, we don’t get to see him as much as we like and he’s sometimes not around for Christ mas, but this time he was.

The road signs whiz by as we cruise along the long windy road. The car slowed down as we turned into the first neighborhood, my eyes lit up as the houses came into view. One house in par ticular caught my attention, the house was outlined in a brilliant gold, small aquamarine blue snowflakes were strung around the house, the trees had lights spiraling up, changing colors all simul taneously, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, all the colors shone just as brightly as the others. I watched it slowly pass by as the snowflakes danced around the car.

The giant snowflake illuminates the path in blinding white light, I squinted trying to get my eyes to adjust to light as I better look at it. The car slowly comes to a halt, we all look in awe at the giant ball of light. I turn around in my seat to try to get a last glance as the car lurched forward.

Since moving away, we’ve tried to find lights as spectacular, but nothing compares to the beauty that those houses had.

Molly Noll Age 11 Denver

Favorite Christmas Memory

Christmas means different things to different people. To some it means family and presents. For some it’s parties and Christmas dinner. Many of us have favorite Christmas memories and traditions. It might be anything from opening gifts a certain way or going somewhere for Christmas. My favorite memory is something we do every year.

Decorating the Christmas tree involves Christmas music playing and going through all the tubs of Christmas decorations sitting in the living room. Sometimes we watch a Christmas movie, and if it’s cold enough we have a fire in the fireplace. I like to drink hot choc olate while decorating, and we almost always wear our PJ’s. Our Christmas tree feels extra special to me because it’s a live tree we picked out ourselves.

Opening the tubs of Christmas decorations usually involves us looking at crafts we made when we were younger and pictures of us when we were younger. When we get out the picture frame of all our past pictures with Santa, my dad reminds us that’s all he wants for Christmas again this year. And we’ve really done it every year. My mom is usually picky about where the ornaments go on the tree. My cat, Mr. Bojangles, likes to play in the boxes and the empty tubes that held ornaments. Sometimes we play a board game together too. Another very special part of decorating the tree is setting up our mini nativity set. It’s the same one we’ve used every year and even though we’re a little old to still play with it, we do.

This is my favorite memory of Christmas because everyone is happy and having fun together as a family. I love that we are togeth er and that everyone is in a good mood and feeling excited about Christmas coming.

FINALISTS

Corbyn Martin Age 11 Narvon

My Favorite Christmas Memory

What is a better way to start Christmas Eve than with a candle light supper with your family? We have a traditional Christmas Eve candle light sup per with our family. The candle light supper is in memory of Jesus’s birth. Then we sit in the living room to enjoy a happy time together. We read the Bible story of baby Jesus and the children answer some questions about the story at the end. After that we open gifts from our parents also in memory of the gifts Jesus recieved the night he was born. We get to play with our gifts for a little while then we go to bed and snuggle under the cozy covers.

Isabella Kurtz Age 12 Elverson

Christmas Memory

Ella Stallard Age 11 Spring City

A white Christmas

All school year and summer I had waited for winter to come. This time of the year Pennsylvania was covered in a blanket of snow as white as the white of a candy cane on the Christmas tree. It was the day before Christmas morning and I was sitting with my dad in the Christmas Eve service. Communion was being passed out and I took it. After an hour or so we left to go home. I got ready for bed think ing of little Jesus lying in the feeding trough. The next morning me and my sister went to our parents room to wake them up. My dad was not in his bed neither was my mom! The rush of excitement went through me. We said “can we come down?” My mom said no you must stay in your room so we did. Then my mom and dad told us to come out of our room and sit on the stairs. So we did, my mom took a picture and we ran down stairs to see a whole room decorated with a tree and brand new red beautiful sleds! One for me and one for my sister and a shiny bike for my mom. A whole stocking full of all kinds of presents, and a big bag of beef jerky. But we couldn’t get far until dad said “let’s read Luke 2.” So we sat down and listened. Dad read about how baby Jesus the king of the world was laid in a manger. And came to save us!! And then mom pulled out warm delicious sticky buns and we had the best Christmas ever!!

ment. I looked around for it everywhere. Finally, I peeked under the couch and there was the ornament and the thief.

My favorite Christmas memory is a funny one. My dad and mom surprised me with a kitten, a kitten I never thought I would have. My mom usually has allergies but miraculously with this bundle of joy she didn’t. When I walked in, she was sprawled out on the living room floor batting at some feath ers. I paused with my mouth hanging opened until I cameto. Quickly I cuddled her up and named her Clementine.

One of my favorite memories that Christmas was the time she kept pulling ornaments off the tree. I had woken up one morning to a sparkly Christmas tree with a missing orna

Later that evening Clementine made her bed on my pillow. I went to sleep and soon woke up to a little furry bundle by my head. When she really wanted love she would crawl under the covers and snuggle by me. At first I was worried I might accidentally roll over on her, but I never did. We made up a cat bed on the floor but, no matter how hard we tried, she would always jump back on the bed and curl up beside me.

Clementine loved the snow. She would jump in and out of my foot prints and chase snow balls on the ground, pawing at them and scurrying away. In a small way this adorable kit ten is just a tiny glimpse of the joy of Christmas. Christ would bring an even bigger joy to this world, himself as a small child.

Jaiden Vega I Age 12 New Holland

Christmas in Florida

On December 21, my family and I set out to drive from Pennsylvania to Tampa, Florida. We decided to leave at dusk to let me and my two half-dead sisters sleep. The trip was very boring as expected, but we knew it was going to be epic because we were going to Florida. Our great-grandparents had a huge house in Florida and had invited us to come for Christmas. From what they told us, they lived in a retirement community and there was supposedly an outdoor pool in the middle of the commu nity. To get to the pool, they owned a golf cart which I quickly learned to drive. When we arrived we were jumping in our seats with our parents yelling at us to calm down. We pulled in front of this epic house with a bunch of palm trees, a pavilion, and a golf cart. We hopped out at the speed of light and raced inside when our grandparents saw that we had arrived, they were filled with excitement. Most days we spent scuba diving, or driving the golf cart around the huge town. But on Christmas day, that’s when the fun started. We play cards half the day and then swam the other half. We then open gifts and drank hot chocolate halfway into the night. The following day we played and played with are brand new toys until around noon when we started to pack up to leave at 2:00. We then left around 1:45 and the way back we kept fiddling with are super cool gifts all the way home. By the time we got back, we were all half asleep and about to fall over. I hope you enjoyed the story from my family to yours. (=

Morgan Sensenig Age 11 Ephrata

My Christmas

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is meeting at my Grandma’s house on Christ mas Eve. I would walk in and be greeted by family. The smell of ham in the air, Christ mas decorations up and the smiles on my relatives faces. For dinner, we would have ham, Mac and cheese, fruit and vegetables. All of us would sit at the dinner table and would eat the delicious food that everyone had made. We would have pie and ice cream for dessert and would eat until we couldn’t eat anymore.

Then all of us would gather around the living room and exchange gifts. The best part was watching their faces lite up with joy. We would play with pets and laugh, it was the best. For the rest of the night we would all enjoy our time together. Most times if it wasn’t snowing and wasn’t too cold my cousins, my siblings and I would play games outside. We would build snowmen, have snowball fights, climb trees and play games, like hide and seek or tag. The rest of the night would be spent having dessert. We would all say goodbye and be on our way. This is my favorite Christmas tradition because all the fun our family would have!

Karlee Martin Age 12 East Earl

Favorite Christmas Memories

“Silent night, holy night,” softly comes from the nativity, covered with fresh greens. Through them softly glows a string of small lights, and one is inserted into a small round opening in the back, casting a soft glow over the interior. Small pieces of straw are strewn over the rough board floor. In the exact center lies Jesus, in a hay-filled manger. Mother Mary and Joseph are behind him, looking down tenderly. Outside are several wise men and shepherds. Inside are a donkey, cow, and some lambs, lying placidly on the floor.

In reality, it was probably a dark, cold, damp cave where Jesus was born. The straw could have been stiff and prickly; and where did Joseph and Mary sleep?

On Christmas morning we get up very early in the morning to smoke a turkey. The sky is still vel vety black, but with the first hints of dawn in the east.

The turkey will be smoked over a real hickory wood fire just enough to give it a delicious taste. Then we put it into the oven while we go to church. When we come home, the scent of roast ing turkey fills the house with its savory aroma.

After our “feast” for lunch, we read the Bible story, and wind up the nativity a few times to listen to its sweet, old-fashioned tune. Then the gifts are opened, and soon wrapping paper is strewn all over the floor.

Sometimes we have a special treat in the after noon, like sparkling grape juice. Then, after the wrapping paper is cleaned up, we eat our supper, then have some special family time before bed.

Christmas is always a special day. Gifts are excit ing to open, but the best gift of all is Jesus!

of Beauty

WILLOW BROOK GREENHOUSE

2162 Compass Rd. (Rt. 10), Honey Brook, PA 19344

Winter Hours: Mon., Tues., Wed. & Fri. 8-sunset, Sat. 8-3, Closed Thurs. &

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