Lawrence Jones, Fox & Friends company reporter, makes a lot clear in his engaging contribution to the new book All American Christmas by Rachel Campos-Duffy and Sean Duffy.
Jones reveals that sometimes the best Christmas isn’t always the most dazzling or complicated. Sometimes the beauty of this time of year just lies in being with family and loved ones and knowing that you love them deeply. It can be a great gift of its own.
The joy we feel at this time of year over celebrating the birth of Christ helps us overcome the difficulties, challenges, pressures, and pressures that we all experience from time to time – perhaps often.
Christmas has a way of doing this year after year.
A young Lawrence Jones. This adorable photo and many others can be seen along with essays, recipes, playlists and more in the book “All American Christmas” by Rachel Campos-Duffy and Sean Duffy.
(Courtesy Lawrence Jones)
Here, in the following excerpt from a much longer essay, Jones recounts how hard his thoughtful young parents worked to help their three children experience the blessed joy of the holiday season, no matter what it took to make it happen.
He also shares how he himself, as an adult, strives to bring Christmas joys to others as he moves through his own life. “I know one thing,” says Jones of his future. “I will do what my mom and dad did for my siblings and me and teach my family to be charitable and have reasonable expectations.”
Read this memorable story by Lawrence Jones from “All American Christmas”
Lawrence Jones in All American Christmas: Christmas was the best time of the year for my family. No matter what was going on with the extended family in the past twelve months, that was always the time when differences were settled if necessary and everyone came together.
That meant mom and dad did their best to make sure we enjoyed Christmas and its true meaning and had some fun things to enjoy.
In my immediate family, I am the oldest of three children and we started the season on Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving dinner, we gathered and put up and decorated the Christmas tree. It was artificial, but the feeling of togetherness wasn’t.
“Little by little we set up and decorated the tree,” says Lawrence Jones of his family’s Christmas tree. “It was artificial, but the feeling of togetherness wasn’t.”
(iStock, file)
My mom had me when I was seventeen, so my parents were young parents, but there was always a traditional atmosphere that night and the rest of the Christmas break. Even though I grew up in Garland, Texas, my daddy really got into the typical Christmas card scene.
Before the pruning began, he made a fire in the fireplace, mom made hot chocolate, and little by little we built the tree and decorated it.
Nat King Cole sang about roasting chestnuts, but instead of taking a sleigh ride, we all got in the car and drove the thirty minutes to see the decorations homeowners had put up in and around Dallas.
“These drives have given me a sense of what is possible when I work hard at school and have a vision for my future.” – Lawrence Jones in All American Christmas
One of our favorite places was an affluent area where Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, and some of the gamers at the time lived. Highland Park had wide streets that meandered through the impressive houses. Lights were lined up in the trees, framing the houses, and various still lifes or animated figures stood on the huge lawns.
We were a little impoverished and visiting Highland Park felt like we were in a dream world. Every weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we would go to a different area to admire how other people had decorated their seats.
TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS AND THE JOY OF FAITH: HOW TO REACH OTHERS
I guess I could have looked at these houses and been angry that these people had something we didn’t. That didn’t happen. Instead, the journey was demanding. I would say to myself: “Someday I’ll build a house like this.”
These drives gave me a sense of what would be possible if I worked hard in school and had a vision for my future. My daddy helped shape this view of what I could achieve. Many times, even when I was in elementary school, he would let me rewrite my book reviews and he would always tell us to read, read, read.
My mom worked as a nanny for a while and my dad was a computer operator. They were both employed and worked hard. But raising three kids even on two salaries can be a challenge.
“Being together as a big family has been more than worth the time, effort, and money,” Jones says of his Christmas holidays as a kid. (File)
This was especially true when mom fell ill with lupus in eighth grade and eventually had to be disabled. At that point I took over the cooking tasks, including at Christmas. Besides being pretty good at using kitchen tools, I got used to a glue gun at an early age.
We were kind of a make-do family … Luckily, my mom was an expert at coupon cutters. We just got along and the great meal [on Christmas Day] was something my mom and dad wanted to do and had to be resourceful to make it all come true.
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Being together as a big family has been more than worth the time, effort and money.
To this day, simple joys mean most to both of them.
excerpt from the book All American Christmas by Rachel Campos-Duffy and Sean Duffy. To purchase a copy, click here.
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