A Special Gift by Ruth Ryan

I’m sometimes asked what has been our most memorable Christmas. That’s a hard one to say because we were a baseball family for 27 years as Nolan traveled around the nation with his team for much of the year. So when it came to Christmas, the best gift anyone received wasn’t wrapped. It was the fact that we all spent time together.

But there is one Christmas that really stands out — and not necessarily for the right reasons. It was when our kids were younger and we were still living in Alvin and Nolan and I decided to really splurge on them.

So we bought 3-wheelers for them to drive around the ranch. I still don’t know what possessed us to do it. I remember looking out the window and seeing the kids zipping down and around the barn, then the house, next over the pastures, then around the house again.

It was an exciting Christmas for the kids to say the least, but it caused me so much worry we retired the 3-wheelers. And from that time to now, we’ve emphasized our special Christmases over our more memorable ones. I’m sure most mothers out there do the same.