The holiday season is, for many, a time of reminiscing. The season is not just about the gifts and the feasts, but about the relationships and gathering again with family and friends. It’s a time when families gather and memories are made.

Unfortunately, for some, those memories are sad.

In an effort to alleviate the troubles for some families, several different groups in town are working to provide gifts and food for those in need this holiday season.

◊The Pea Ridge Water Department gathers and distributes food baskets to families in need. This year, the 11th year of giving, the city employees will distribute about 80 food baskets completewith a turkey.

◊The Pea Ridge Ministerial Alliance Angel Tree project brings together ministers from churches across the community. Together, with assistance from community members, business and school students, the project provides, not only gifts to children, but food baskets to the families of those children. There are more than 80 recipients of that project which has been underway for more than 10 years.

◊The Pea Ridge Middle School Student Council students held a food drive and gave a bus load of food to the Ministerial Alliance to give to others.

◊A private donor provided very nice gifts for the Student Council sponsor, Mrs. CourtneyHurst, to use as an incentive prize for students to bring canned items for the food drive.

◊Arvest Bank presented a check from the Walton Family Foundation to the Ministerial Alliance for Angel Tree.

◊Many, many families adopted an angel off the tree and purchased gifts for those children.

◊Student groups - the Student Council, thecheerleaders - adopted angels and purchased gifts for children.

There are many more, including private acts of charity to bless others and try to make the season more enjoyable.

There are many activities planned in our area providing holiday cheer including free dinners, plays, concerts, Christmas Eve services and special church services.

Life is a strange mixture of joy and sadness.

The older we grow, the more we come to recognize that and accept with grace the disappointing, discouraging events.

When we’re young, we chafe at any unpleasantness as though it’s unusual, but we soon learn, if we’re teachable, that life involves both good and bad. We can either accept it and learn from it, or resist it and become bitter and cynical. The latter option will destroy us.

A man, who had moved often as a child, recently said: “My mom made a home everywhere we went; just the house was a little bit different.”

He said his father’s job entailed the family to move often.

What a wise woman she was. She knew the home was the family, the people, not the building they occupied or the city in which they resided.

Scripture says: “Every wise woman builds her house; but the foolish plucks it down with her own hands.” (Proverbs 14:1)

What an honor mothers have to build a home and provide rich memories for their family. As our children grow up, they move out and establish homes of their own. They will build their own homes and establish new traditions, usually a combination ofthe traditions both the husband and the wife have brought from their families of origin.

Usually, during the holidays, we remember Christmas past - our childhood Christmases, a first Christmas married or a child’s first Christmas. For some, it’s the thought of a first Christmas without a cherished family member or friend that stands out in their memory.

I’ve been looking back through old photographs. The memories are pleasant.

There’s the photograph of the Christmas from 1959 when I’m unwrapping a box containing a beautiful Madame Alexander doll. There is a photograph of me as a pre-schooler sitting in footed pajamas in front of my grandmother’s fireplace with the very familiar pink felt Christmas stockings hanging up behind me. I’m opening a Casper toy and my aunt sits nearby holding a Casper doll. There’s the fourth birthday picture taken right before Christmas with my cousins - almost all boys.

Then, there are the Christmases with my children - pictures from 26 years of each of them in various stages opening gifts, smiling for the camera.

My grandmother always had a white flocked Christmas tree decorated with pink glass balls.

Then, for a time, we had an artificial tree because my stepfather was cautious about fire.

But, after spending the Christmas of 1974 in Williamsburg, Va., my brothers and I decided to surprise our parents with a “real” tree. We purchased a tree, strung popcorn and cranberries and made sugar cookie ornaments. Everything on the tree was handmade. My “baby” brother, Charlie, made paper ring garlands.

We had a lot of fun working on that and our efforts were rewarded when our parents were delighted with the surprise.

As the oldest of three children, I remember being elated when Mother allowed me to help “play Santa” and I stayed up late (it probably wasn’t all that late) to help her set the gifts under the tree for my younger brothers. One year, they received a train track and we set up the track, strung black sewing thread on the utility poles for electric lines and played with the “steam” from the locomotion. We went into the kitchen to get the cookies to set out for “Santa” and then heard a loud crash.

My kitten had climbed up the Christmas tree, causing it to fall over on the train track. What a mess!

We cleaned up the broken glass, restrung the threads and soon headed off to bed for the evening.

My brothers and I were always excited on Christmas morning and usually awoke our mother way too early. She finally made a rule that we couldn’t wake her until the television “came on.” There was no 24-hour TV channel then. I clearly remember waking early and laying on the living room floor beneath the Christmas tree lights in front of a television display that white light and the emblem of an Indian. When the national anthem began to play, I would awaken my brothers who had fallen backto sleep and we’d run wake our mother so we could open our presents.

This Christmas, remember, it’s about people and relationships. It’s about giving of yourself.

Merry Christmas.

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Editor’s note: Annette Beard is the managing editor of The Times of Northeast Benton County. A native of Louisiana, she moved to this area in 1980. She has nine children, one grandson and another grandson due in April. She can be reached at [email protected].

Opinion, Pages 4 on 12/15/2010