Jo Ann Glim: How Do You Share the Gift of Tradition?

Jo Ann tells the story of a memorable Christmas when she was five-years-old and her Swedish grandmother gave her the gift of tradition. Enjoy this warm and happy holiday memory.

Lessons Learned

  • It is important to bring out and pass on traditions from the past and pass them on to future generations in our family. And if you don’t have traditions to pass on, start your own traditions.

  • Gather as families during the holidays and share stories of Christmas past or stories of our ancestors.

  • Pass down ornaments from grandparents to grandchildren

  • Traditions are often something that have brought you love or joyful feelings.

  • If you have a favorite Christmas memory, write it down so it can be passed on to future generations as well. (And this would be a great Christmas gift to give to your family.)

Connect with JoAnn

#tamarakanderson #storiesofhopeinhardtimes #podcast #hope #God #hardtimes #Christmasstory #holidaytraditions #traditions #sharetraditions #humor

Transcription

You can find the transcription of today's episode here:

Tamara Anderson 0:02

I'm so excited today because I get to share with you a very special beginning to our holiday stories of hope with the story of a grandmother, giving her five year old granddaughter a special Christmas gift that she would never forget. Stay tuned.

Tamara Anderson 0:25

Welcome to Stories of Hope in Hard Times, the show that explores how people endure and even thrive in difficult times. All with God's help. I'm your host Tamara K Anderson. Join me on a journey to find inspiring stories of hope and wisdom learned in life's hardest moments.

Tamara Anderson 0:50

Hello, and welcome to our first edition of our Holiday Stories of Hope. And to launch today off I'm bringing back a guest from back in 2020 Jo Ann Glim and Jo Anne and I have been friends for several years. And as I mentioned, that I was starting this she says I have a story I can share. And so I brought Jo Ann on today's so that she could share a story from her book Begotten With Love. And it's about a Christmas that she had when she was five years old. And she's going to share with us this story and why it has become so meaningful to her to look back on it. It was just such a beautiful and unique Christmas. So Jo Ann, first of all, thank you for coming on the show again today.

Jo Ann Glim 1:37

Thank you for having me.

Tamara Anderson 1:39

So Jo Ann, tell me why this Christmas when you were five years old was so burned into your memory.

Jo Ann Glim 1:48

I think one of the reasons you're only five years old and you really, you know, you have a family. You know, you said you know you're gonna have dinner, you know you have a bed to sleep in. But you don't think of the other things that are important that are being taught to you over the years. And this Christmas actually was a Christmas gift that my grandmother had asked for for herself to give to me. And it started when my grandfather brought a nine foot Christmas tree into our home that had an eight foot ceiling.

Tamara Anderson 2:33

Oh my

Jo Ann Glim 2:33

if you can imagine this absolutely huge tree. Well what happened when grandpa and the tree literally fell into the living room. This is when they're still trying to get in the front door. A Sparrow was on our front porch had been there all summer and got caught up in the tree somehow and ended up in the house. So grandma was afraid of birds and she was running around with her apron over her head slapping at Air hoping to keep the bird of way and she ran into Kitchen.

Jo Ann Glim 3:15

My mother was trying to help my grandfather captured this bird and this part of the Sparrow was bumping into walls and you know puff balls of dust yellow they finally found him and Grandpa anticipate gently held him and he sat there for a minute and then just blue light. But when the tree was set up, we could still see this puff balls from the sparrow.

Jo Ann Glim 3:48

And it was very European I came because it was these branches that had the little time the needle sign and they were the tiny skinny months and there was about maybe six or seven inches between branches so there was a lot of space in between. And they got it set up over in the corner and everything I remember as all families do when you're setting something up like that. Grandpa was trying to get the tree straight in this bucket where he had two by fours trying to hold the tree in place. And he keep asking now is it straight out and of course mother and grandmother well a little to the left after about the 10th time and his arms started to shake and he goes Woman! and they both said it you know was closer to horizontal than straight they said it looks perfect.

Jo Ann Glim 4:53

That was the start of the Christmas tree. We got the tree set into place. Everybody admired except Joni. And she looked at this tree and she said, Mom, I don't think this is a good tree, because it's very skinny. It looks like me. Yeah. It's big enough that my friend Becky has a treat. It's bigger than that. And it's got a Chinese ornaments on it and it has Christmas lights that bubble? And so I asked her, I said, are we going to have a tree like that? And mom said, no. She said, this is going to be a very, very special tree and one that you've never seen before. And you may never see again.

Jo Ann Glim 5:41

And you know, I have no idea which is referring to. Anyway, the time came for the big surprise. And Grandma loved me into the kitchen. And you could smell the cinnamon from the yellow cookie, certain cooking all day. And the color on the walls were beginning to turn with the colors of the sunset because it was closer to dark than it was afternoon. And looking at the ornaments, my grandmother, my, my grandparents, were immigrants from Sweden, they didn't meet till they came to America. But that was a place of origin.

Jo Ann Glim 6:25

So my mother's second generation American. And so basically, I'm the first one that was well she was born here as well. But I was raised to be an American. And so to have three generations in one household, to me, that's been my the best gift I've ever had in my life. But her ornaments came from Eastern Germany. And you know, if you've ever studied or really like ornaments, that's one of the best places, especially back around the 19 1900s when she first got and so this beautiful ornaments with the Santa Fe system, Christmas bells and all these different, different shapes. There's one in particular, that's a silver bird with a glass tail on it. And I still have that one.

Tamara Anderson 7:31

Oh, how special!

Jo Ann Glim 7:33

Yeah, I just love it. Yeah, I mean, just all the things that bring the Christmas magic into the home when you look at these ornaments. And so when I walked into the room, I looked at the tree, and it was done. I just turned to my mom and said, This is the most beautiful tree I've ever seen. It's even better. And so mom just had this big, wry little smile on her face. And she said just wait. So Grandma took me into the kitchen. And we sat and waited for a few minutes.

Jo Ann Glim 8:10

And I noticed that the living room started to change kind of a golden color, you know, and then pretty soon, I heard my mother said, Okay, we're ready. And she turned on the radio and there's this Christmas music playing and stuff. Now one of the things that happened right before my grandmother took me into the kitchen, was grandpa was walking across the living room floor, on my grandmother's oriental rug, which was her her prized possession, and he was slopping water on water. And as a five year old I was horrified because I really got to talking into the week before because I spilled grape juice on grandma's favorite rug. So grandpa's game, I was spilling water. I wasn't about to say anything, but since the time for that kind of thing. That's he is pretty important to do that.

Jo Ann Glim 9:14

So grandma, my mother said come on into the living room. As we walked in there, the tree was absolutely beautiful. I mean, everything was in place. All the little paper chains that I made in kindergarten, all of the cranberry and popcorn strings that we had on there. And we looked at it and I realized that what they had done was on every branch of the tree was a white wax candle. And so the whole nine foot tree was lit in candlelight,

Tamara Anderson 10:03

Oooo!

Jo Ann Glim 10:03

and it was absolutely gorgeous. And all of us ultimately was for the sash stood out with just looks of our face. And grandma explained to me that she wanted me to be able to see the type of Christmas tree she had had as a child, because they all knew that this would never happen again.

Jo Ann Glim 10:32

And so it brought to mind to me as I grew older, how important it is to bring our traditions, to remember the past and the people that are with us, or that we may not have even known but we still have some type of memento from them. It's important for us to remember that and bring it to our families and children.

Jo Ann Glim 10:58

And the one thing the last thing I'm going to mention and I'm very quickly just read this last paragraph because it's important to me and I don't want to not remember it right. It says, "The soft candlelight flickered stars of light on to the ornaments. A radiant show of simple handmade crafts nestled deep within the limbs and illuminated the faces of the holy family. The four stared with childlike awe at the creation. And their hearts filled with joy and peace, for that moment was right in the world."

Tamara Anderson 11:39

Wow, that is beautiful. Jo Ann, thank you so much for being willing to share that story yet. It brings to mind so many things we can do even today to instill those memories and traditions, first of all, inviting loved ones to be with us and share those perhaps Christmas memories from when they were younger. And I also loved the idea of passing down ornaments how neat it is that you're you have one of your grandma's ornaments. I mean, that is that is a treasure it really is. And then another one that I love is this idea of passing down traditions. Because every family is going to have different traditions. And maybe you don't have a family who has traditions, but you can start your own right.

Jo Ann Glim 12:34

I think it was a tradition, it's a repetition of something that has brought you love or feeling of fulfillment in your life. And those are the things you want to hang on to because they are going to make a difference in your life as you continue.

Tamara Anderson 12:53

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And so whatever your traditions are, pass them on, pass them on to future generations, so that they too can remember, perhaps that Christmas with grandma or an aunt or an uncle and what they shared. I know one of our family traditions is acting out the Nativity and then we also read Christmas stories on Christmas Eve and that's that's a fun little tradition that we have and and I love it and I know my kids love it as well. But I picked it up. I picked up the the acting out the Nativity from my parents, they always did that as well.

Tamara Anderson 13:40

The stories I added, cuz I like Christmas stories. You know, the big picture book combines all sit and read like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas and you know, all those types of fun stories. So it's it's fun. Now, Jo Ann, before we go, why don't you share with us where people can find this story? I know it's in your book, begotten with love. Where can people get your book begotten with love? It's an award winning book, by the way at one first place for biography from the Florida Writers Association. So you probably should read it.

Jo Ann Glim 14:19

Yeah, it's a fun book dedicated to my grandparents on both sides of the family and how they met and there their version of the American dream. So but it's on Amazon. You can also get it through its on the website and the website is JoAnnGlim.com. And it has all the information there and all the places in which you can find it. You know it really would be a fun book to give as a gift for Christmas because, you know it talks about of the struggles that immigrants have gone through, and they come to America and the dreams that they've had. Some are successful, some are tragic. But it just, it just makes you realize and think about your own family and the stories that are there.

Tamara Anderson 15:19

Yeah. And you know what you bring up another good point, Joanne that we should probably dry out is that if you have a favorite Christmas memory, it's worth it to write it down so that it can be passed on to other generations right.

Jo Ann Glim 15:35

Now would be a good Christmas gift to give to your family to bring all these little stories together and hand them out Christmas time so people can enjoy them.

Tamara Anderson 15:49

Oh, wonderful. Well, Jo Ann, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your holiday story of hope, and helping us set the tone for all of us to have a wonderful and blessed holiday.

Jo Ann Glim 16:01

Thank you Tamara

Tamara Anderson 16:04

Hey my friends, are you looking for a meaningful Christmas gift this year? If so, you need look no further I have a fantastic sweet short story. I am so excited to share with you my new booklet it's called A Broken Down Holiday. This is the story of a widowed young mother trying to travel home for the holidays soon after her husband dies, and being stranded in the middle of nowhere. And some of the hard things that she experiences and some of the miracles that you wouldn't think are miracles that she had happen, that it is based on a true story that happened to my mother in law. It's great for those friends that you're just like, what do I get them something simple. That's under five bucks to great stocking stuffer. So if you want to share this message of hope with your friends or family members, check it out a broken down holiday on Tamara KAnderson.com.

Tamara Anderson 17:07

Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's show. If you like what you heard, subscribe so you can get your weekly dose of powerful stories of hope. I know there are many of you out there who are going through a hard time, and I hope you found useful things that you can apply to your own life in today's podcast. If you would like to access the show notes of today's show, please visit my website stories of hope podcast.com. There you will find a summary of today's show, the transcript and one of my favorite takeaways. You know, if someone kept coming to mind during today's episode, perhaps that means that you should share this episode with them. Maybe there was a story shared or quote or a scripture verse that they really really need to hear. So go ahead and share this podcast. May God bless you, especially if you're struggling with hope to carry on and have the strength to keep going. When things get tough. Remember to walk with Christ and He will help you bear the burden. And above all else, Remember God loves you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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