Favorite childhood Christmas memory
Would love to here everybodies favorite childhood Christmas memories. When we were little we would go down town to see the lights. We got to have lunch in the "Tearoom", a nice restaurant in a large department store and then go ride the Christmas train and see Santa. The store is no longer there but it lasted long enough to continue the tradition with my own sons for several years. |
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| The first really good Christmas memory was Lisa and I were 6 and Todd was 5..mom had us lay under the tree feet faceing the tree and told us to close our eyes....out of nowhere (the kitchen) came scampering a golden retriever puppy...she scared me at first because my eyes were closed and didnt know what was attacking me..lol...I opened my eyes and saw this little puppy with a huge pink bow around her neck....Muffy lived to be 13 and was my first puppy love. |
| My first Christmas memeory is when Verity and I were about 3 and 5 we helped(Yeah Right) Mom set up the tree. We would take the shiny garland or tinsel and wrap it around our necks and pretend to be movie stars. I had purple and she had silver. I don't think we were much help to her. My Dad has pictures of us somewhere. |
| Great idea for a thread.... I used to love the holidays. Our family was very close knit, so we got together almost every weekend at my grandparents with aunts, uncles cousins etc, and especially at the holidays. It was always a full house. My cousins and I had a blast when we were little at our family get togethers.
Baking with my grandmother was my favorite thing to do. Watching all the Christmas specials, movies etc, with my Grandpa, putting the tree up with my parents.... all of it. It was definitely my favorite time of year. My Grandpa died in August of 1990 though, and since then, no one gets together really, except for a brief and tense visit on Xmas day or Boxing Day depending on people's schedules. It's nothing but stress now, I see my aunts and uncles maybe once every 5 or 10 years, and most of my cousins I haven't seen since the funeral. It makes me sad for myself, but mostly for my kids who have never experienced that. They see their grandparents at xmas and a few times in the summer to go swimming, but it doesn't seem to be a priority for anyone anymore. Everyone is so busy, working so many hours every week that all of us just feel like there are not enough hours in the day. I tried for a few years to start new holiday traditions for my kids, puttting together bits and pieces of what I had, but without all the family it's not the same. Since I had my kids young though, by the time my parents retire my kids will be past the age of the magical feeling the holidays can bring. I don't ever want grandkids, but if I do become a grandparent, I want to make sure they know how special and important they are, and how important family should be to them. |
The other memory I have is snapping Santa's beard. Thats my Dads fault for telling us not pull it. Poor Santa  |
| My favorite memories are always putting up the Christmas tree
making fudge! I never liked fudge  but it was something I still looked forward to doing with my dad.
staying home to watch all the Christmas movies while eating cut-up sausage/cheese/crackers! |
| I look forward to the new memories now that mr joah and i have our own traditions like:
we only have personalized ornaments (that relate to us in someway whether it's a picture of our names), ornaments of sheepies, malteses, and cat, and we're looking for a unique alaska collection (moose) because we will be the only ones with one when we move back to the lower 48. stockings are a HUGE deal with his family so we have adopted the tradition. it's filled past the point of what it should probably handle and it's sometimes more exciting than the presents (due to the kind of things we put in them). i make every cookie under the sun for the entire family (+ inlaws), and his mom makes trashcan size container full of that chex party mix stuff. |
Baking. I used to love to help my grandmothers bake and now I look forward to doing it with the boys. They love to help in the kitchen.  |
| I remember making Italian cookies with my Mom, and helping decorate our tree. We never had a real tree - had one of the original artificial ones, but it didn't matter to me as a kid. It was on a platform and my Dad built his little city under the tree, complete with a train. I still have some of those old metal figurines, and until a few years ago, still had some of the old houses. They were cardboard with cellophane for the windows and if you turned them over, the price tag of 15 cents from F. W. Woolworth was still on the bottom!
I still do a village (without the train) and my kids used to love to help when they were little. Spencer was always very imaginative and artsy (didn't get it from me!), but this still blew me away. The Christmas when he was 3-1/2, I walked into the living room to see him putting tufts of cotton in the chimneys of those old houses. When I asked him what he was doing, he said that was the smoke coming out from the chimneys!! Still makes me smile to think of it, and he's now 23! Sarah's favorite part was putting the candy canes on the tree and making sure we left cookies and milk for Santa. I would write a thank you note from "Santa" and their little eyes would just light up when they read it. Great, happy memories! Chris |
| Mmmmmmm... pizelles Chris?? I love those things! |
| When I was a kid (with 2 older and one younger sister) we always went out in the woods as a family to get the tree on the Sunday before Christmas. As this was in VT, there was usually snow on the ground.
My father would cut down the tree and bring it home and make a stand for it. We would then decorate the tree (yeah, we kids were a big help) while my mother played the piano and we sang Christmas songs. My father couldn't carry a tune in a basket but would sing the loudest of all. The off tune songs ring in my memory and I often cannot sing them without duplicating this sound. Okay - I take after my father and can't sing either - but I do have a good ear and can hear when it's off. He always thought he sounded great. Also, we always had our big meal at noon on Sundays, and supper would be fudge and popcorn. |
| When we were kids we would go to the Ford Rotunda for the Christmas display, there were what seemed like hundreds of beautifully decorated trees. My younger sister and I always got new velveteen dresses and mary janes for the occasion, afterward we would go out to dinner and get anything we wanted. I always got lobster tail, it was the cheapest thing on the menu
My worst Christmas memory was my aunt and uncle gave us the same thing every year....white cotton underwear  Like we woudn't have any if they didn't give it to us  |
| We got long flannel nightgowns with itchy lacy around the neck and arms from our Great Aunt Ginny...We opened those on Christmas eve and had to wear them Christmas morning..with matching barretts in our hair...My wrists are itching...I gotta go... |
| Mine was going into the city to Myers department store and seeing the christmas windows, the tradition continues with me taking my children every year. Having all the family together and my grandparents being there with us all for christmas, gosh I miss them at this time of year. |
| I have 4 sisters and 3 brothers, so Christmas morning was always a very noisy, messy time. Lots of folks to play the board games with, and we'd all sing French and English caroles to my dad's guitar playing.
What I remember doing from very young was playing with the nativity scene characters with my sisters. We would make up our own stories which ususally included the 3 wise men kidnapping the baby Jesus. The angel would let Jospeh and Mary know where they were hiding. They then enlisted the help of the shepherds and caught the kidnappers off guard, saved the baby and then all got to be friends. |
| ..........hmmm, so many but the year I up-chucked on Santa at the department store ranks high on the memory list.
sheepieboss |
Ever since my brother was a young teenager, he took great delight in hiding different pieces of the nativity from my mom. He only took one or maybe two pieces. When she'd notice, he'd act innocent, of course. It took awhile to figure out he was the one doing it. 
Even though we are now all in different homes, he still goes from house to house at Christmas hiding pieces of all our nativities. It just wouldn't be Christmas if Joseph wasn't kidnapped and hidden in a cubbard. |
Quote: Ever since my brother was a young teenager, he took great delight in hiding different pieces of the nativity from my mom. He only took one or maybe two pieces. When she'd notice, he'd act innocent, of course. It took awhile to figure out he was the one doing it.
Even though we are now all in different homes, he still goes from house to house at Christmas hiding pieces of all our nativities. It just wouldn't be Christmas if Joseph wasn't kidnapped and hidden in a cubbard. Tammy, that is hilarious--my brother does the same thing! Or, if he doesn't feel like hiding the pieces, he'll rearrange things or add other items to the scene, like a bobblehead that he got from a baseball game or something. Nothing like the manger scene with Tony Gwynn included! |
| Very Funny, Steph! What is it about brothers?? Mine must not have thought of adding to the nativity, yet.
A couple of years ago, though, I decorated a few days before Thanksgiving and hosted the meal at my home. When everyone left, I noticed the only thing left at my nativity was the creche!! He'd hidden every piece. I didn't find baby Jesus until about two days before Christmas. Even my brother couldn't remember where he'd put them all. |
| My favorite christmas memory is when my grandmother in belgium used to set up the tree and instead of making the tree out of only ornaments she used to hang candy and chocolate in it as well. I would have eaten the entire tree by the next day but it was tons of fun... |
| ^^^^
We I lived in Belgium, I remember receiving a lot of chocolate filled with liquor for Halloween. Not exactly what my parents wanted me to get at 5 y/o |
| I've really enjoyed reading all your memories....
My fave Christmas memories are when my brother and I were very small, we would both gather around my Mother as she unwrapped the big, brightly colored glass ball ornaments for the tree. Before she would unwrap them from the newspaper she put them in each year, we had to guess what color was inside. Who ever guessed the right color got to hang that ball on the tree. It was a good way to keep us occupied, out of everything and helping. |
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