Your most cherished holiday memories...

[McGoddess09]

I was 13 at the time. My mom was working as hard as she could to barely make ends meet. We were on food stamps and my mom was drinking pretty heavily. Even with these situations, my sister and I woke up on Christmas morning to a pretty great Christmas. My mom hasn't pulled through much, but that year, she pulled through for Christmas.

I do love my mom though. Not trying to make her sound bad.

[Bloodsoul]

Waking up in the middle of Christmas Eve night as a child and hearing bells jingling and thinking it was extraterrestials Santa.

[Retail Associate]

Ratha - Your story gave me chills. What a wonderful memory!

Mine is more of a tradition. I always wrap presents in different boxes than they came in because my son can tell what's inside just by looking at the packages.

The first year I did this, my telephone had quit working so I bought a new one and decided that the box would be great for wrapping up a present. I knew that once my son saw the package, he'd think he was getting a phone for Christmas.

I found a chunk of a broken patio stone, tied it inside the phone box to add weight, stuck some legos in there then wrapped it up. Sure enough, when he saw the package he said, "that's a phone." But when he opened it he was pleasantly surprised that he'd gotten legos instead...and he didn't KNOW it was legos.

So, to this day I still have that phone box and I use it every Christmas to wrap up one of his gifts. And every year he asks, "Where's my phone?"

It's our family tradition.

[Jester]

You realize, of course, that when/if you finally DO get your son a phone, it is pretty much imperative that you wrap it up in the phone box. Since naturally, when he sees the phone box, he KNOWS he's not getting a phone!

[Kogarashi]

My favorite memories are of sitting around the tree on Christmas Eve with just the tree lights on, while Dad read from the scriptures. After that, we'd get to pick one present from the stack that was obviously movies (VHS cases), unwrap it, and watch it. Once or twice, Mom and Dad actually suggested a specific wrapped VHS because they knew what it was and that we'd like it. The rest of the movies would be unwrapped and (most) watched on Christmas Day as part of our festivities.

Then there was the year when we didn't see any wrapped movies under the tree, and were very confused. We did something else for Christmas Eve that year, then went to bed. In the morning, Mom and Dad had us unwrap a huge box that had a tag from our Grandparents on it (who lived on the other end of the country, and who sent money for Mom and Dad to get us gifts). The huge box turned out to be a DVD player and speaker system, and we found the movies (DVDs that year) inside those clothing boxes department stores often use.


Another tradition.... In our family, we weren't allowed to wake Mom and Dad up until a set time, after which we could unwrap gifts with everyone together. Until that time, we were allowed to play with the contents of our stockings, as well as our "Santa present," since Santa didn't wrap up his presents for us.

[Elspeth]

I think my best memory is the tree my Mom made one year. Dad wasn't around that much at the time, I think he had just started trucking or was working over time. Money was tight and we had a really small house that would take a full size tree. So Mom made one out of branches that we hung ornaments on. That is my favorite tree ever.

Oh and the year I wrapped my own presents. She was running behind Christmas morning and so I was tasked with wrapping the gifts. She had names on everything, including my own. She said wrap it and no looking. And I didn't.

Oh and one more. Dad got tasked with wrapping. And on one of my dragons that Mom painted, he wrapped it in foil under the wrapping paper. It was always one of my gifts that was wrapped weird. He isn't allowed to wrap much.

[JoitheArtist]

1. Reading A Christmas Carol together. Ever year, we'd start reading Christmas Carol out loud as a family on Thanksgiving night, and finish on Christmas Eve before opening presents. We've each probably read the book 15 times by now, and have seen all of the movie versions except the new one (in our opinion, the best version is the 1984 made-for-tv movie with George C. Scott, though Muppet Christmas Carol comes in a close second). Probably half of our family's inside jokes are related to the book in some way (especially the phrase, "a fragment of underdone potato!" Yes, we are strange.) I still remember when I was about 7, and my dad came home one day with a lovely illustrated copy of the book, and gave it to me, explaining that I was now old enough to fully participate in the reading, instead of just listening. That's still the copy that I read to this day.

2. Making eggnog and fruitcake with my dad. We always make one or the other, and have killer recipes for both.

[Tanasi]

The Christmas that I remember the most was my 11th. Mom put Dad in charge of getting me something. Well Dad being Dad forgot and all there was for me was underwear and socks, and a blamed white dress shirt (I still hate white dress shirts to this day.) I didn't cry but I was real disappointed, Mom on the other hand wasn't angry she was MAD MAD MAD. The next day when I got home there was a long box and a much smaller box on my bed. The long box was a Marlin Model 60 Glenfield .22 rifle and the small box was a brick of ammo. I could have walked on marshmellos then and smashed nary one.
I also remember sneaking out at midnight to see if the animals and critters actually did bow down for Jesus's birth.

These days on Christmas Eve the kids open their presents to each other and from their Grandparents. On Christmas morn they open their Santa gifts, gifts from Mommy and then their gifts from Daddy. By this time we're awash in wrapping paper, boxes and instructions and usually happy youngins.

[Princess-Snake]

Suprisingly (or unsuprisingly, however you look at it), one of my cherished Christmas memories happened in the hospital. I can't remember how old I was, but I was in the playground of the pediatric ward and we were all making grahm cracker houses with M&Ms, gumdrops, twizzlers, frosting, other junk food... I was particularly proud of my grahm cracker house. Not only had I made the house and decorated it, I untwisted a couple of cords from one of the twizzlers, bent and knotted the candy into a person shaped figure, stuck a minature marshmallow onto where the neck of the candy man was supposed to be, and called him Jack Skellington.

Another memory I have just happened last year. You all remember when I had the transplant last year my left leg went completely numb? Well, after a couple months of physical therapy, I could somehow walk (stiffly), but I could not properly bend my knee. So, for a while I was afraid of the stairs and stayed upstairs for a while. Sounds reasonable, right? Well, guess where the presents were. Yep. They were downstairs. So, my mom held my hand while I was walking down the stairs very slowly. (With my sister screaming at me to hurry up.) I made it all the way down the stairs. What seperated me from the presents was one tiny step that seperates the kitchen from the family room. I take the step down and promptly fell flat on my rear. It didn't feel particularly funny or cherishable at the moment, but a year later, it's downright hilarious.

[JoitheArtist]

I forgot one!

For some reason, my dad's side of the family takes great pleasure in trying to be the first to shout "Christmas Eve Gift!" at each other on Christmas Eve. I have no idea if this is a pre-existing tradition, or just something random my dad and his sisters came up with. But since my parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and sister and I all celebrated Christmas together, the air was always echoing with someone shouting the greeting at someone else, and someone else groaning at having been caught unprepared.

Even today, when one of us calls another on Christmas Eve, we don't even bother to say hello, we just shout "Christmas Eve Gift!" into the phone.

Does it make any kind of sense? No. But we do it anyway!

[Severen13]

For years my mother made the most delicious fudge for Christmas. Hasn't made fudge in eons.

Decorating the tree. One year dad dragged home a HUGE tree that had to have been 9 feet tall. Haven't decorated a tree in years.

And there was the year everyone slept in ridiculously late. We only got up when Dad yelled "You all better get out here and open these presents or I'm taking them out to the backyard and burning them!"

Yes, my family is weird.

[dalesys]

The year we got frozen Cornish Game Hens for each of our children and buried them in the snow around the yard with howtofindit clues for each child. Then they each got to roast their own personal Christmas "turkey".