Sunday ☕ : The Memories That Matter Most Aren’t Under the Tree

I’m watching the sunrise paint the limestone cliffs behind our home in shades of rose gold and amber — colors that would make any plein air painter reach for their brushes. Steam rises from my coffee cup, creating little ghost dancers in the morning light, and somewhere in the distance, a mourning dove is singing what sounds suspiciously like the first notes of “Silent Night.”

Eighty-one degrees on Christmas Day. That’s what the weatherman promises us here in Austin. While half the country dreams of Bing Crosby’s White Christmas, of frost etching the panes of cathedral windows, of that particular blue-silver light that only comes with fresh snow, we Texans will be hiking in shorts, maybe taking the kayaks out on the lake, listening to cardinals and mockingbirds provide the soundtrack to our holiday.

Memory’s Muffled Music

I close my eyes and I can still hear it, though — that specific muffled quiet that falls when snow begins to stick. Growing up in that smallish Midwestern town, Christmas morning had a sound all its own. The scrape of a neighbor’s shovel on concrete at dawn. The whoosh and thud of snow sliding off the roof. The delighted shriek of a child discovering footprints in the snow leading from the chimney to the front door. My mother’s voice calling from the kitchen. The smell of cinnamon rolls wrestling with the sharp scent of pine from our tree.

Funny how memory works. I can transport myself instantly to those snow-globe Christmases of childhood, yet here I sit, barefoot on my porch, listening to wind chimes play their random carols, watching a roadrunner investigate bird feeders. Both versions of Christmas are true. Both are perfect in their own way.

Gold Schwinn Dreams

Only at this time of year do I find myself excavating these Christmas memories like an archaeologist of joy. Some shine bright as new pennies — like that gold Schwinn bike that materialized on Christmas morning, the one I’d been manifesting for months, the one my parents swore we could never afford. I can still feel the cold metal of those handlebars under my mittened hands, still hear the tick-tick-tick of the playing cards we’d clothespin to the spokes as I rode across the crunchy snow on Christmas morning.

And there was that artist’s easel. Somewhere in a shoebox of fading photographs lies the evidence of that Christmas morning when God winked at a boy who didn’t yet know he’d spend his life chasing light across canvas. I’ve been hunting for that photo for decades now, like it holds some secret message from my younger self.

Thunder on Stairs

But you want to know the memory that makes my heart squeeze tight as a fist? Picture this: 3-year-old triplets, finally old enough to understand the magic of Christmas morning. We’d made them wait upstairs — cruel parents that we were — until we gave the signal. Then came the thunder of six little feet on stairs, the screaming joy that could’ve woken the neighbors three doors down, and those faces — oh, those faces when they rounded the corner and saw the tree lit up like heaven’s own chandelier, presents spilling out like a treasure chest had exploded in our living room.

That image burns behind my eyelids. Pure, distilled wonder. The kind that makes you understand why we do this whole elaborate dance every December.

Midnight Parent Magic

I’m sitting here now, watching the Texas sun climb higher, thinking about my parents staying up until 3 am assembling bicycles with instructions that might as well have been written in ancient Aramaic. About my mother’s hands, raw from wrapping-paper cuts, carefully arranging each gift just so. About my father eating those cookies we left for Santa, making sure to leave dramatic crumb trails. They were set designers, choreographers, magicians — and I never knew it until I found myself up at 3 am, Allen wrench in hand, muttering prayers that the wheels would actually stay on those bikes come morning.

Most days of childhood blur together like watercolors in the rain. But those orchestrated moments? Those deliberate acts of magic-making? They stand like lighthouses on memory’s shores.

What Actually Sticks

My kids surprise me sometimes with what stuck. Not always the expensive gifts or elaborate plans. Sometimes it’s the year the heat went out and we all snuggled to stay warm. Or the Christmas Eve we played silly games, laughing so hard we could barely breathe.

Grandpa’s Sacred Calendar

My dad taught me something profound about grandparent love. He’d put everything on hold — everything — to be there for first haircuts, lost teeth, school plays, birthdays. His calendar revolved around those kids like planets around the sun. Watching him, I learned that being remembered isn’t about grand gestures. It’s about showing up. Again and again and again, even though he had to fly across the country to do it.

Mema’s Holy Stairs

My grandmother Mema had her own ritual. Christmas Eve on her stairs, all the cousins lined up like organ pipes, taking turns reading Luke’s gospel before anyone could touch a single present. We’d roll our eyes, shift from foot to foot, practically vibrating with anticipation. “And it came to pass in those days…” someone would begin, and we’d all groan internally, calculating how many verses until freedom.

But here’s the thing — that memory grafted itself onto my family’s DNA. Not a Christmas has passed without us gathered in our own living room, reading those same words about a baby in a manger, about shepherds and angels and a star that led wise men across deserts. My kids probably rolled their eyes too. And someday, God willing, they’ll make their own children stand still for just a moment, just long enough to remember what all this sparkle and sugar is really about.

Creating Tomorrow’s Memories

So here’s my challenge to you, with Christmas just around the corner: What memory are you creating this year? Forget the perfect Instagram moment. Forget the Pinterest-worthy table settings. What will your people remember in 30 years?

Maybe it’s a walk after dinner when the stars are so bright they seem fake, everyone’s breath making little prayers in the cold air. Maybe it’s teaching your grandson to paint his first sunset, or your child to hear the music in ordinary wind chimes.

The Loving Conspiracy

The gift isn’t the bike or the easel, though those can create lots of excitement. The gift is the elaborate lengths we go to make magic real, if only for a morning. The gift is showing up, year after year, until the showing up itself becomes the tradition.

I’m grateful to you for reading, for forwarding, and for responding or commenting. May your Christmas be filled with the kind of memories that last — the ones that sneak up on you years later and make you stop in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday, smiling at nothing anyone else can see.

Merry Christmas, friends. Every single blessed one of you. I’ll see you on YouTube at noon today, because part of what I try to do is also show up for my friends.

Who Is This Guy Eric Rhoads?

Eric Rhoads is the founder and publisher of PleinAir Magazine and Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine (both on newsstands nationally), author and host of six Art Marketing instruction videos, writes a blog on Art Marketing, and is the author of the Amazon bestseller Make More Money Selling Your Art. Additionally, he produces the weekly e-newsletters American Watercolor, Fine Art Today, Inside Art, PaintTube ArtNotes, Pastel Today, Plein Air Today, and Realism Today. Eric hosts the in-person Plein Air Convention & Expo, the Fine Art Trip for art collectors, and painting retreats including Paint Adirondacks, Fall Color Week, and the Winter Art Escape, as well as online virtual events Acrylic Live, Pastel Live, PleinAir Live, Realism Live, Watercolor Live Digital Painting Live, Gouache Live, and Art Business Mastery Day. He is also the producer of the PleinAir Salon Online Art Competition and art instructional courses through PaintTube.tv. Each weekday Eric hosts Art School Live, a YouTube show featuring free demos from a variety of artists, and he is host of the PleinAir Podcast and Art Marketing Minute Podcast. Eric is a plein air, landscape, and portrait painter with works at Castle Gallery. He is heavily involved in the radio industry as founder of Radio Ink Magazine as well as Radio + Television Business Report, the Radio Forecast Conference, and the Hispanic Radio Conference. He is the author of the bestselling book Blast from the Past: A Pictorial History of Radio’s First 75 Years. Eric lives in Austin, Texas, with his bride, Laurie, and they are the parents of triplets. Learn more at EricRhoads.com, or see Everything We Do.