If I have counted correctly, this is my 74th Christmas. Believe me, I do not remember all of them. The only thing is how much money I spent on all of those Christmases.

I know Christmas is filled with rituals. As a young person, I grew up on rituals. Our best ritual was on Christmas.

For instance, the day before Christmas, my father would get a real Christmas tree. On Christmas Eve, we would all gather to decorate it. Then, on New Year’s Day, we would take down the decorations, and my father would move the tree outside to the backyard. Our backyard was filled with Christmas trees.

The day before Christmas, my mother and I would go Christmas shopping from early morning until late afternoon. She knew every shop and exactly what to buy in each. She worked on that list for months and was excited to receive all the gifts on it.

I remember one Christmas, after a full day of shopping, our car was packed with presents. I don’t know how much my mother spent, but it must’ve been a lot.

On our way home, my mother remembered something she had forgotten.

She turned around and went back to a store for Christmas cards she had forgotten. We both went in, and my mother bought about 20 cards. As we left, she sighed and said, "Son, it’s been a busy day—I’m glad it’s over. I can’t wait to get home." I agreed.

We would take these Christmas presents home, and when my siblings and I went to bed, my dad and mom would wrap all the gifts and put them under the tree.

As we approached the car, I noticed one of the back doors was not fully closed.

“Mom,” I said, “did we leave the back car door open?”

Mother looked and said, “We sure did not leave any door open.”

When we went into the store for the Christmas cards, the car was filled with all kinds of Christmas presents we spent all day collecting.

When we got to the car and opened the door, the inside was empty. All our Christmas shopping for the day had disappeared. My mother looked inside the car and could not believe what she saw. Or, maybe I should say she couldn’t believe what she wasn’t seeing.

Suddenly, my mother sighed, and tears ran down her cheeks. She looked at me and said, “Oh, what are we going to do?” It was too late to shop again, the stores closed early, and shopping time was over.

My mother stood just staring into that car for what felt like forever. I could feel her grief hanging heavily between us. I didn’t know what to do. I felt helpless, wishing I could comfort her, but no words seemed right. Someone broke into our car and stole all our Christmas presents, leaving us with nothing but shock and a deep, hollow ache.

On our way home, my mother was relatively quiet. Usually, she’s quite the chatterer, but today she hardly spoke at all.

We got home, walked into the living room, and saw the Christmas tree waiting to be decorated. Dad greeted us and said, “Where’s all the Christmas presents?”

Without saying anything, my mother walked in and sat down, and was quiet for a few moments. Then she looked at my father and said, “Someone stole all our Christmas presents while we were in the last store.”

My father just stared at her, shook his head, and said quietly, “What are we to do now?”

After a relatively quiet dinner that night, we went into the living room and began decorating the Christmas tree. No one talked as usual; we just put together all the decorations.

That Christmas really stands out in my mind because it was the only one with no presents under the tree.

On Christmas morning, we woke up and sat around the tree as usual, but there were no Christmas presents under the tree.

That was the strangest Christmas our family ever had.

I thought it was strange that no one in our family ever mentioned that Christmas over the years. I guess I’m the only one who actually mentioned it. We all think of it, I’m sure. But it was one of the worst Christmas days we ever had as a family.

We celebrated Christmas as usual, and Mother had a wonderful Christmas dinner for us. We sat around the table trying to sing Christmas carols. It was hard, but we decided to move forward and celebrate our family rather than dwell on our missing Christmas gifts.

No matter how difficult the Christmases have been since that time, none of them has equaled the sadness of that Christmas.

Reflecting on that Christmas recently, an encouraging verse of scripture came to my mind.

“Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God” (Psalms 42:11).

Not everything turns out the way we plan. I haven’t had a Christmas like this, but there have been times when I thought everything was going the wrong way. It’s times like this that I need to focus not on what’s going wrong but on God. My faith in God gets me through every problem no matter how difficult.

Dr. James L. Snyder, is pastor of the Family of God Fellowship, 1471 Pine Road, Ocala, FL 34472. He lives with his wife in Silver Springs Shores. James is an award winning author whose books are available at https://amzn.to/2SMOjwO.

Call him at 352-687-4240 or e-mail [email protected]. The church web site is www.whatafellowship.com.