Jac Walker turns out to have lived in the same house in the Franconia section of southern Fairfax County since 1929. Her father at one time was a fire chief. And for all the booming development that has now engulfed what used to be a sleepy Franconia road section used by Virginia tobacco farmers seeking the port at Alexandria, Ms. Walker knew there was more than a little history, more than a few pictures and more than a few stories that could show that the area had been important for a long time. That's why she had helped found the Franconia Museum, a museum that functions without a permanent home, but places exhibits in the Franconia Governmental Center and other community meeting places.

As the Museum's spare website notes, Franconia turns out to have been the birthplace of the first Virginia governor from Northern Virginia (Fitzhugh Lee served from 1886 to 1890), the target of a Mosby raid and the location of an early African-American commnity called Carrolltown. But there was so much more. The banquet program notes on awards night credited Ms. Walker with working "tirelessly to record, preserve and share Franconia history through family stories."

"Some of us long-time residents started getting together to tell stories and someone finally suggested that we write the stories down," Ms. Walker explained to her audience, as though writing and preserving history were a simple, everyday activity open to anyone. "Many really didn't want to take the time to do that, thinking that their own family stories all seemed so unimportant and insignificant."

But the members of the all-volunteer Franconia Museum have a saying, "that you must know where you came from to know where you are going." So Ms. Walker plowed ahead not only to write down her own stories and to share her photographs with her neighbors and friends, but to encourage others to do so. Three volumes of "Franconia Remembers" already have been published and a fourth volume is due from the Museum in 2007.

This success in appreciating the histories that are lived by all of us is mirrored across the region in dozens of other ways. Fairfax County Board Chairman Gerald Connolly, for example, pushed the county History Commission to form a committee dedicated to recording and presenting oral history. The History Commission has several awards programs of its own to honor individuals, corporations and groups. And Fairfax County has has its own historical marker program since 1998. Seventeen Fairfax County markers in the buff and blue colors that marked George Washington's Fairfax Militia uniform have been erected since then.

For the record, Franconia in Virginia took its name from a region in southern Germany noted for the House of Hohenzollern, which was championing the Reformation and pushing modernization of the economy at the same time colonial America was growing. But three goals of the Franconia Museum here and now capture compellingly a common goal for each of us at holiday time when families gather and stories abound: Protect our history, promote our heritage and provide educational opportunities. The fourth museum goal turns out to be even more important. It suggests a shining example of good citizenship that should keep the applause spreading anywhere in Virgnia there is a Jacqueline Walker: Highlight and enhance the Spirit of Franconia.

Expand that to the spirit of where you live and mix in the spirit of the season. Happy Holidays.