What is Your Favorite Christmas Memory?

[Nahum]

What is Your Favorite Christmas Memory?

[rgcraig]

I was 16 and had opened up all my presents and it was a good year!

I dumped out my stocking and after the apple, orange, candy and other fun things tumbled out a little box fell out. I opened it up to find a Toyota key in it!

Nothing was in the driveway or in the street and my brother and I were running from room to room looking out the window and finally in the backyard hid close to the family room window was my brand new little white Toyota!

I learned that morning in my robe and house shoes with my dad how to drive a stick shift!

[FRINGE_NUTTER]

Killing hogs and having fresh fatback meat for supper.

It was cold outside and feeling like it could snow any moment, but it didn't. Inside were 6 children getting ready for Christmas in a way they had not known before. The aroma of homemade food filled the house. Not expensive food, yet the smell can be remembered today as one memory never to forget. Some were sitting on the floor and some on the couch, awaiting the start of the Christmas celebration.

Somewhere in another room the scene was quite different as two parents tried to decide what to do. Finances had been very tight this year and it seemed that the amount of presents were going to be very small. "What can we do to make this more fun?" they said as they knew that the opening of the presents was going to take no time at all and it would be over so quickly. So, an idea was born that night to help us remember the best Christmas ever.

As we all assembled together in the living room to start our Family Christmas, each one of us was handed a slip of paper. On that paper it told us where to look for our present. When we went to that location we would find another piece of paper to tell us where to look further. At some point the search directed us to find our gift. But what fun we had, all six of us going in every direction of that 5 room apartment looking for our gift. Laughing and having a great time doing it, we had no idea that the great fun we were having was all because our parents had used their creativity to make it fun for us. Such a simple idea, yet exactly what was needed.

I wish I could tell you what my tangible gift was that Christmas, but to be quite honest, I have no idea. However, I have never forgotten that Christmas. It was so much fun and we had no idea that the whole reason we got to play that game was to cover up the fact that there just was no money for gifts that year. Oh, if my parents could have knownwhat that actually gave us! Such wonderful memories! And a realization of what one of the great things Christmas should be......great times with family!

Do you have a favorite family Christmas memory you would like to share? I would love to hear them!

:

[FRINGE_NUTTER]

Originally Posted by MrsBOOMM

It was cold outside and feeling like it could snow any moment, but it didn't. Inside were 6 children getting ready for Christmas in a way they had not known before. The aroma of homemade food filled the house. Not expensive food, yet the smell can be remembered today as one memory never to forget. Some were sitting on the floor and some on the couch, awaiting the start of the Christmas celebration.

Somewhere in another room the scene was quite different as two parents tried to decide what to do. Finances had been very tight this year and it seemed that the amount of presents were going to be very small. "What can we do to make this more fun?" they said as they knew that the opening of the presents was going to take no time at all and it would be over so quickly. So, an idea was born that night to help us remember the best Christmas ever.

As we all assembled together in the living room to start our Family Christmas, each one of us was handed a slip of paper. On that paper it told us where to look for our present. When we went to that location we would find another piece of paper to tell us where to look further. At some point the search directed us to find our gift. But what fun we had, all six of us going in every direction of that 5 room apartment looking for our gift. Laughing and having a great time doing it, we had no idea that the great fun we were having was all because our parents had used their creativity to make it fun for us. Such a simple idea, yet exactly what was needed.

I wish I could tell you what my tangible gift was that Christmas, but to be quite honest, I have no idea. However, I have never forgotten that Christmas. It was so much fun and we had no idea that the whole reason we got to play that game was to cover up the fact that there just was no money for gifts that year. Oh, if my parents could have knownwhat that actually gave us! Such wonderful memories! And a realization of what one of the great things Christmas should be......great times with family!

Do you have a favorite family Christmas memory you would like to share? I would love to hear them!

:

Your story sounds much better than my mention of killing hogs and having fatback meat for supper. There was much more. There was a warm fire, happy hearts and a close family. We were together in peace and love. All was well.

[Nahum]

I have several.

My favorite is from when I was nine years old.

My dad was a Vietnam vet, and struggled to find work when he came back home to Missouri. So, he went to work at the dump as a garbage hauler. He was the guy that would ride around on the back of the garbage truck and throw everything in.

We lived in the Ozarks. I mean the Ozarks! Backwoods USA.

My parents, and the four of us kids, lived in a two bedroom 14X70 trailer on my grandparents farm. We owned a 69 Impala that my aunt gave us when Dad came home from the war.

Bottom line?

We didn't have very much money.

So that year my mom sewed us shirts and britches and homemade blankets. We went out in the woods on the farm and cut down a fir tree.
We did not have lights to hang on it. We made paper cutouts of snowflakes and hung an honest-to-goodness popcorn strand on it.

We had one of those great big wooden console record player/fm stereos that we would spin Christmas records on.

Life was grand.

Us kids thought we were big stuff! At that point in life I didn't know how everybody else lived.

Originally Posted by FRINGE_NUTTER

Your story sounds much better than my mention of killing hogs and having fatback meat for supper. There was much more. There was a warm fire, happy hearts and a close family. We were together in peace and love. All was well.

I had not seen your post before I wrote mine. I actually didn't know this thread existed when I started mine. As soon as I posted it someone merged it with this one. Which is ok. It happens often that I don't see something.

[Rhoni]

My first Christmas tree was at the JCM dorm the Christmas of 1975. We sat up for hours stringing popcorn and cranberries and had a devotional service around it. Some of my favorite people: "Red", Sharla, Pam, Rebecca, Donna, Sheila, Debbie.

Debbie and I had Christmas dinner with Ray & Wayne and then spent the holiday in Memphis with the Grishams and Bro. & Sis. Wolfe & their two daughters...

Debbie and I enjoyed shopping for everyone. Debbie's mother made me my first jean skirt.

I had 9 invitations to the Christmas banquet and ended up going with Billy Gilley. LOL...I should have went with ...but I would have had to fight off Pam Wise & Billie Chisolm.

LOL...That was a good year

That was a good Christmas.

[RevDWW]

It was when my eldest brother's girl friend and their twins come over on Christmas eve. My mother was so happy, even thought the twins were "crack babies" and cried constantly. I figured that if I got them a puppy it would make them happy. It really did until the puppy bit into the extension cord and was electrocuted. Smoke was coming off it's little body, so my drunken step dad, grabbed a glass off the table to douse the flames, unfortunately it contained whiskey and cause an even larger fire. Not until the tree caught fire did we really know how much combustible material was in the living room. Well I was had been wanting a fire truck for Christmas and even thought there was one melting under the tree, when a real one showed up it was awesome. We lost the house and the puppy was cremated so having to bury it was not a problem. That would have been a real bummer. The Christmas eve dinner at the Salvation Army Shelter was tasty and the homeless men where funny so we where entertained until the telegram arrived telling the folks that my eldest brother, who was in Vietnam, was missing in action. Mom cried as much as the twins. But then they passed out the wool blankets and we all hit the rack waking on Christmas morn with much to be merry about. At least there were no rats to scratch and bite us and we all had a good night sleep. I got a really good pair of snow boots and my feet were warm all winter. Florida never really gets all that cold anyway.












[The proceeding story was a sorry work of pure...well maybe impure fiction]

[DividedThigh]

I was 11 and was so excited to go to florida for christmas with the welchs, i was so happy that she loved me so much, at that time i lived at tcm, so it was weird, institutional christmas and all, i will never forget , i got all kinds of stuff for christmas, fishing rods, and tackle and a radio, a record player, gosh all kinds of clothes, well after we all got our presents i didnt think i could be any happier, Mom went to the back of the tree and took one last present out, she brought the package over and dropped it in my lap. I unwrapped it and to my surprise it was a certificate saying that paul and shirley welch were my honorary parents, i cried for a long time and hugged my mom. 37 years later they are my mom and dad, the only real parents i have ever had, what a memory, the best christmas i could have ever had, real parents, god bless, dt