Send us your Stories

This is a special (bonus) episode of Stories From Cold Springs. We've been asking our guest to share their favorite Christmas memories. Here are some of our favorites.

A castoff tree becomes a masterpiece. A heaterless Ford carries a homesick soldier down a freezing highway. A prank chair turns a nervous daughter-in-law into family. These are the moments that define Christmas in our world: kindness at midnight, laughter that sticks, and simple gifts that outlast their batteries.

We gather voices from across our first season (and upcoming second season) for a special holiday tapestry.

Dawn Beam remembers a year so lean that her family prayed for a tree that miraculously appeared, and made beautiful with cookies, popcorn, and borrowed lights.

Ted Tibbett relives 1965—stuck with a late radio shift, a chance meeting at a truck stop, and a dirt road rescue capped by two mules and a sunrise reunion.

Kym Garraway-Braley shares the infamous camo seat with the hidden remote, proof that humor can knit a family faster than any perfect present.

Father Tommy brings Irish cadence—Santa on Christmas Eve, church on morning, cards by the fire, and St. Stephen’s Day songs at neighbors’ doors—celebrations built on ritual, service, and shared delight.

Kristen Illarmo talks about finding her way back to wonder through her kids and the sanity-saving tradition of giving books.

Todd McCall maps the logistics of love across grandparents’ tables and a rotating family Christmas that waits for him to get home from college athletics.

Stubbs Lucus honors a father who couldn’t wait to give, handing out presents early so the kids had more time to play.

Host J. Stephen Beam closes with twin battery bulldozers, a crack in the hood, and a lasting lesson: joy doesn’t require perfect things, only present people.

If you crave stories that feel like a warm room on a cold night, this collection is for you. Press play, remember your own best Christmas, and share it with us. Subscribe, leave a review to help others find the show, and tell a friend who could use a little light today.

This episode was sponsored by MCS Homecenter, Bellevue.

Subscribe, share with a friend who loves radio, and leave a review to help more listeners find these stories. Your voice keeps this community strong.

Links to Stephen's incredible novels:

The Death Letter
The Bondage of Innocents