Five years ago on Christmas I received my first guitar. It was one of those beginner acoustic guitars in a cardboard box from Wal-Mart and I didn’t even know how to play, but I opened it with excitement and strummed the out of tune strings.

When I look back over the last few years and trace key moments in my life, this particular one stands out. This guitar was a huge building block for where I am today. I had always loved music, but this wood box allowed me to experience music in a whole new way, as a creator and no longer just an observer.

I bought a chord chart and learned how to play, chord by chord. A couple of years later I was playing in a worship band in my youth group and quickly learned to love how music could connect people with people, and especially people with God. I loved it. It was therapy, an escape from the world.

This love for music has led me where I am today - as sophomore music business major at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. I have trusted God and this love for music to lead my life, and it has been very rewarding.

And to think, it all started on Christmas 2004 with one Little Wood Guitar…

“Little Wood Guitar” – Sugarland

It’s Christmas day
And the snow is comin’ down
Church bells sway
They’re ringin’ to wake the town
Preacher Kline recites his lines
The pews will be full today
Mr. Howell cranks up his plow
His blades’ll clear the way

It’s Christmas day
And the pecan pies are bakin’
Mothers say,
“It’s the givin’ not the takin’”
My brother’s brand new bicycle
Is out janglin’ in the street
I watch him through the icicles
With this wood box beneath my feet

All I got is this little wood guitar
What it brought is neon lights in crowded bars
Like all the Kings with all their gold
Went chasin’ down your star, I’m told
Every highway takes me where you are
With this little wood guitar

It’s Christmas day
Funny how the years can shape us
Much has changed
I’m a musician, I’m a waitress
Chicago’s a winter wonderland
And my brothers and their wives
Passin’ ’round their dinner plates
And dissecting my life

I never stopped believin’
I just kept on singin’
Now people come to hear from miles around
And I don’t mind confessin’
But I still count my blessings
I just never thought I’d settle down

It’s Christmas day
And little ones are wakin’
I hear them play
I can hear the presents shakin’
A boy’s outside on his new bike
Janglin’ in the street
A little girl, she’s watchin’ him
That wood box beneath her feet

All she’s got is this little wood guitar
What I thought is it might take her pretty far
Like all the Kings with all their gold
Went chasin’ down your star, I’m told
Every highway takes me where you are
With this little wood guitar
Little wood guitar

_______________________

This Christmas, five years after I recieved my first guitar, I’ve decided to give my niece Makenna her first guitar.

Although she’s only just over a year old and the guitar is a plastic LeapFrog one, I hope that it’ll start something in her life that means as much to her as music has meant to me.

Are there any particular Christmas gifts or memories that you’ve received that you feel have shaped your life in one way or another?