Once the Christmas season rolls around, we all come across plenty of holiday cards in stores or our own mailboxes. Some greeting cards are beautiful, others are funny, and then there are some holiday cards that bring back memories and truly hit home. Whenever I see winter scene cards, I’m reminded of my dad.
My dad was a real nature lover, preferring to be outdoors whenever he could. Growing up on a dairy farm in a small town in Pennsylvania, he spent his boyhood days taking care of the barnyard animals, fishing, swimming, and just enjoying the countryside. On snowy winter days, he would put on his skis and set out for school, trekking across the meadows to a one-room schoolhouse. My dad had an endless assortment of stories about growing up on the farm with nine brothers and sisters. When he spoke of those long ago days, it brought to mind the beautiful Currier & Ives paintings of winter scenes and I thought about how nice it must have been to grow up in such a place, surrounded by so much natural beauty.
My dad left the Pennsylvania mountains when he married my Mom. They moved to New York City, where my mom was from, and then to the suburbs when they started raising a family. I could tell that he missed country life. He lived in the suburbs, but his heart remained in the mountains of Pennsylvania, a place that would always be home to him.
One Christmas while shopping for holiday cards to send to family members, I came across some really wonderful Christmas cards. I picked out one of these pretty holiday cards for my dad, a greeting card with beautiful snow-covered mountains, a babbling brook and a family of deer in the foreground. He never mentioned the greeting card to me, but after the holidays I stopped by his house to take him out to breakfast at his favorite place, IHOP. He was crazy about their buckwheat pancakes! Anyway, I noticed that on his bedroom dresser was the holiday card I had sent him. The Christmas card was propped up in front of all his other stuff, so he could see it each time he passed by. He saw me looking at the holiday card, came over and picked it up. “You know,” he said, “This is the best greeting card anybody ever sent me. It reminds me of home. “
My dad’s been gone quite a few years now and I’ll always miss him, but I smile each time I think of that one little Christmas card and how happy it made him.