The Shoe Box Read Free

are Gravenstein. They’re available in late summer. We buy them by the lug at the orchard here in Sonoma County.
    6–8 apples (peeled and sliced)
    1 tbsp. butter
    1 tsp. cinnamon
    dash of nutmeg
    ¾ cup sugar
    1 tbsp. flour

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    D ecember came and brought with it colder weather. Mary and David bought Timmy a heavy snow parka and gloves. His mother gave him a new backpack, and he put his shoe box in it. He it to school each day, and in the afternoon he’d hang the backpack on the closet door, where he could see it while he was doing his homework or when he went to bed at night.
    It seemed everybody in the small town where Mary and David Holmes and Timmy lived knew about the shoe box. But nobody but Timmy knew what was inside it.
    A few boys tried to take it from him one day, but Mrs. King saw them and made them pick up trash on the school grounds during lunch hour.
    Sometimes children on the bus would ask him what he had in the box, but he’d say, “Just things.”
    â€œWhat kind of things?”
    He would shrug, but he would never say.

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    SIMPLIFYING CHRISTMAS
    Several years ago, when storefront Christmas decorations appeared in October, our family decided to scale back, not add to the national credit card debt, and keep our focus where it belongs: on Jesus. Each family brings one gift for the entire family to enjoy throughout the afternoon: a movie, a game, or treats. After our sit-down Christmas dinner, we gather in the living room. One of our grandchildren reads the Christmas story from Luke before gifts are distributed and opened. Each grandchild receives one gift from each family. This has made for a simple, stress-free, debt-free, joy-filled celebration of Jesus’ birth.

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    TURKEY DRESSING
    This turkey dressing recipe was passed down from Grandma Johnson to my father-in-law, Bill Rivers. Dad Bill knew just how to cook a turkey— I never tasted one that wasn’t perfect. It’s been a family tradition, ever since he learned from Grandma, for each generation of men to teach the next. Dad Bill taught Rick, and Rick has taught Trevor, our eldest son. Rick also flew back east to teach our daughter, Shannon, and her husband, Rich, how to roast a thanksgiving turkey à la Rivers. Since Dad Bill passed away, Rick has handed the baton to me. He encourages, oversees, and carves. Now that our children are grown, married, and have children of their own, new cooking traditions are developing.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 2 large (or 3 small) onions
        7 stalks of celery
        1 large green bell pepper
        2 (or 3) 6-oz. packages of croutons
        turkey giblets
        enough turkey broth to dampen stuffing
    Grind everything and mix together. Wash inside and outside of turkey carefully. Oil inside and outside of turkey; salt inside and outside of turkey (liberally). Stuff the bird with yummy dressing.

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    T he church where Mary and David Holmes took Timmy had a Christmas program each year. The choir practiced for two months to present the community with a cantata. Everyone dressed in costumes. This year part of the program was to include acting out the Nativity while the choir sang.
    â€œWe need lots of children to volunteer for the parts,” Chuck, the program director, said. “The choir will sing about the angels who came to speak to theshepherds in the fields. And there’s a song about the wise men who came from faraway lands to see Jesus. And, of course, we need a girl to play Mary and a boy to play Joseph.”
    â€œWhat about Jesus?” Timmy said.
    â€œLatasha has a baby brother,” one of the girls said. “Why don’t you let her be Mary, and her baby brother can be Jesus?”
    â€œThat’s a great idea,” Chuck