Christmas at the Church house looks a little different than most.
Sure, you have good food, time with family, and of course there are some gifts, but you also get a gut-wrenching story to put it all in perspective.
The tradition started with Eric’s grandmother, but long story short: every year she would come to Christmas with a story to tell, a gut-wrenching, heart-tugging, make you appreciate everything you have kind of Christmas story to tell the entire family.
And now, Eric’s mom carries on the tradition, but eventually, he knows that it’ll be his wife Katherine’s job to carry it on as well.
Here’s what they do:
“My grandmother, when she was alive, would always come over, and every year she would bring this Christmas story, and some of them were gut-wrenching. I’m not going to lie to you.
They were just heart tugging stories about people who had had…about a Christmas miracle, who had something happen to them; something magical for Christmas that had turned life around…whether it was a homeless person, or just anything.
She would always look all year long and find this story, and then we would have breakfast and she would read it, and it was just our family and we’ve carried that on.
My mom does that now and she’s kind of taken it and she finds the story, and that’s something I’m going to do with my family. And Katherine and I have talked about it. It’ll be her turn to find that, and we have a big Christmas breakfast and we sit around and we share that.
It’s just a neat thing, family-wise, to have that and to always wonder what that story is going to be and what it’s going to be about, and sometimes they’re brutal. I mean it can be hard, you know.
You get up on Christmas morning and you’re in a good mood and they’re just gut-wrenching, you know, but it’s fun to put things in perspective, and it makes you think about people that aren’t as fortunate.”
And you wonder where those introspective, thoughtful, songs come from?
Eric recently released his “Doing Life With Me” studio video, a celebration for those by his side throughout the journey of his musical career.
