Best Christmas Memories As A Child

In My Humble Opinion
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I am a firm believer that Christmas is most special for children, and the reason that we, as adults, still decorate and cook family specialties and have parties is, in part, to recapture those Christmas memories as a child - no matter how rich or poor your family was.

For me, it was a really magical time…the neighbors and my parents’ friends all decorated their homes with grand Christmas trees, there were smells of special foods in each house, and on Christmas Eve, we would get in the car, drive through the snow, and visit several homes and share in their traditions.

Coming home late that evening, we kids would fall into bed - swearing to stay awake to sneak a peek at Santa, but never being able to stay awake long enough - and then waking up to find gifts with our name on them.

There were so many traditions - in our house, lasagna was the main Christmas dinner, and sometimes over a hundred people would stop by our house to visit us on Christmas day. We had bowls of nuts and oranges and Christmas candy throughout the house, my mother hung all of the Christmas cards with pins on the curtains in the kitchen, and there was that smell of pine from the real tree in the living room, with the big multi-colored bulbs, with all of the ornaments and tinsel.

Our family had friends who were very rich, and others who were far from it - but I only remember every house seemed special at that time of year.

Your childhood memories?

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Mom would get out stencils and glass wax and food dye and we would decorate the windows with christmas stockings and snowflakes and Santas. Dad would put up a train around the (real) tree and put a cigarette in it to make it smoke. The smell of a pine tree still means Christmas to me.

My granddad gave us an old black and white TV that mom and dad put in the back. and every year I would go there to watch all the specials. I still watch them every year.

We had these Christmas ornaments with pinwheels inside that you put above a Christmas light and the heat from the light would make the air rise and make the pinwheel turn. I loved those. (We lost all our ornaments in the flood of 1996. I still look for those old-fashioned pinwheel ornaments on eBay, several times a year.)

We didn’t have much money growing up, so Christmas was one of the few times I would get new toys. In honor of that memory, I donate several hundred dollars worth of toys to Toys For Tots.

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Christmas Eve was (and still is) always spent at my grandma’s. I still think there’s something magical about that, but maybe now it’s just the wine that makes everything glow a little. :wink: Dinner came first. After that was clean-up, which when I was a child seemed to take an eternity. Then it was time to do the program. Sometime that day or even sometimes while the adults were cleaning up, we’d write down who’d be doing what. All the children were expected to say our part from our church Christmas program and sing songs together or solo. As we got older and learned to play instruments, we were expected to play those too. We’d throw in a couple of songs for all of us to sing together. My nieces and nephews still do this today, and I think it’s really special. The final part of the program is to read the Christmas story. Then we pass out gifts. We no longer buy for everyone anymore. The kids draw names and the adults each bring a $5 gift. Grandma still buys for all of us (pretty amazing at 86) and we all buy for her. Afterward we generally play board games and put together toys.
Christmas morning at the family farm was (and still is) special too. I’d always get up early and force everyone else up. I’m the youngest of four daughters by seven years so sometimes my sisters were a little grouchy with me. When I was a kid we opened gifts first but now we do breakfast first. That way whoever gets there early enough (I still get there early!) can help prepare breakfast and it’s ready by the time everyone arrives. When I was a kid my parents did an awesome job with their Santa duties. Special years I remember include the year I got my sled and the year I got my Strawberry Shortcake dolls. I got the gazebo and the Purple Pieman and everything, and my parents, instead of wrapping them up, set them up in the living room. It was amazing. After gifts we’d have a huge breakfast with the centerpiece being pulla, a Finnish Christmas bread my sister makes. We have pulla in honor of our “fifth sister,” who was an exchange student with us when I was 2. (And because it’s delicious.)
After breakfast we’d have some time to play and then it was time to pack up the cars and travel to my other grandma’s house. The best part of that was always seeing my cousins. I have a lot of cousins on that side. I also have many fond memories of my grandma’s green and red finger Jell-O (Jell-O jigglers).

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We spent a lot of Christmas’ on Singer Island, Florida (in West Palm Beach) at my grandparents’ house. Every Christmas morning, Santa would ride around the island on a fire truck in mostly full Santa regalia - and shorts :D. And he’d throw candy to all of us from the fire truck. I loved Christmas morning in Florida just for that moment.

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One Christmas morning, I woke up around 6am, very excited. I couldn’t contain myself, so I opened everybody’s presents; Mom’s, Dad’s, and little brother’s. Then, I “carefully” rewrapped them. Turns out, “carefully” rewrapped to an 8 year old doens’t get past the eye of a mom. They all still tease me about it to this day.

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Christmas was spent at home with just my parents, my brother and me. The Sunday before Christmas my father would set up the artificial tree and the lights, and then it was up to the rest of us to decorate it. Out came the little games and puzzles for under the tree, and the ornaments, from our crude nursery school ones up to the special set of clay birds only Mom could touch. They went toward the top of the tree so we wouldn’t break them.

Christmas Eve we would open some of the gifts from the grandparents. On the Day, we opened the ones from our parents. After gifts, we had a special breakfast of pancakes and sausage. Then to Mass at noon, and back to play with our gifts. At church you could see the new things people were wearing that they probably just received.

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Christmas Eve was church, then home. Me and my brother (and our parents.) We’d get our PJ’s on and make a sandwich for Santa. We’d put it, and the glass of milk on the fireplace, then when the neighbors (The Calkins) came over (they were the older couple that became friends with my newlywed parents when they moved into the neighborhood) it was up to bed. Our rooms were right next to each other so we’d whisper and giggle - like our parents couldn’t hear us! Uncle Bill (it was Bill and Lois Calkins - I think - I may have the first names wrong - it’s been 30 years!) would eat the sandwich, and they’d go on home.

In the morning, we could get up, but we couldn’t go downstairs. The living room with the tree was right at the base of the stairway so we had to wait for mom and dad to get up. We’d make a ton of noise trying to rile 'em. My dad would get up, then go downstairs and set up the movie camera. When the overhead light would come on, they’d tell us we could come down. Then we’d open presents, eat breakfast, and get ready for the rest of the day.

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My parents left all the decorating to me and my sister. Except for the lights on the highest part of the house. After my sister learned to drive, we would go to the Xmas tree lot and bring one home in the trunk of my mom’s 1968 Chrysler. We let our mom do it once, but she came home with Charlie Brown’s tree. But, it was better than the silver foil monstrosity with the pink ball ornament, that we had when she was incharge of decorating.
The night that all the lights and ornaments were on the tree, but before the gifts were in place, I would lay under the tree and watch how the light reflected off the glass ornaments, and inhale the pine scent of the tree.

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For me, one of the best moments of Christmas is that every year, two or three days before the big event, I’d have The Moment. Everyone would be watching TV or some such and I’d wander over to the room with the tree and gifts. In there, I’d lay out on the love seat and just look at the multi-colored lights and feel true contentment. As I enjoyed the warm room in the cold weather, I’d be quite happy to just enjoy the holiday spirit and wait with serene patience for Santa. That is just one of many good memories and traditions, but it’s the “Golden” moment.

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Christmas Eve was usually at our house though on a few occasions it was at my maternal grandmother’s who lived right down the street. My aunts and uncles, both of my grandmothers (and before he became too ill, my paternal grandfather), my Dad’s best friend (and our next door neighbor), and my cousins would be there. Christmas eve was sausage balls and country ham, the infamous bone dry jam cake my granny would make every year (until my stepfather ruined it by actually giving his true opinion. ;>) that we would all pretend to love, sparkling grape juice to drink, A Christmas Story on the tv and the first round of presents from my granny, aunts and uncles. My mother and aunt would call all of their aunts (my grandmother had 8 sisters) and under the influence of christmas cheer (and wine) sing “We Wish you a Merry Christmas”, and then hang up without saying anything else. After that my mom, dad, sister and I would go home. We would set out the cookies and milk for santa and my sister and I would exchange our present to each other ( a tradition we still keep because nowadays the best gifts I get are from my sister) and then go to midnight mass or bed, depending on how tired we were. Christmas morning my sister and I would wake up at the first crack of dawn and through sheer effort of will lay there awake for up to 10 minutes, possibly 15. The next stage was her sneaking into my room or me into hers to make sure the other wasn’t wasting valuable Christmas daylight by sleeping. Then we would excitedly conspire and whisper about how much time we had to wait before we woke up our inexcusably sluggardly parents to get our loot. Then we would quietly pad our way into the living room where the tree was and catch our first look at the wrapped presents set out for us. Things either went one of two ways then, either we carefully and mostly quietly hefted our packages and guessed at the contents while still killing time or we just bolted into our parent’s room and jumped onto the bed with them usually while shouting for them to get UP. Pictures and movies of us opening presents, hours spent putting things together, setting up targets for the BB guns and bows, ramps for the bikes and playing in pajamas until it was time to get dressed for the rest of the day. We would then head to my paternal grandparents, have breakfast… sausage and biscuits with Five Alive juice, read “The Christmas Donkey” and open presents from my grandparents. After an hour or so there, we’d load up the car and head to my great-grandmother’s home in the country (until she passed away then it would be my great-uncle and aunt’s home down the street from her) for christmas dinner. That was the coming down part of the day, usually a nap in front of the wood stove, nibbling on vegetable plates and dip all afternoon, my grandparents, dad, great uncle and aunt would all be talking about one thing or another. Then there was dinner, Ham and Turkey, cornbread dressing, cole slaw and potato salad, fried corn and green beans, jello salad and sweet potatoes. Carrot cake for dessert. After dinner we’d open our presents (the last of the day), gifts from my great aunt and uncle who had no children of their own and often gave us interesting things… very hit or miss. When I was a young teen it was nice because they started giving me a new wallet every year, with money inside. :> When it was dark and we were all very tired, we’d head home… and that was Christmas… every year.

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Looking back, my parents must’ve been fricking nuts.

You see, I lived in a very special house. We would go visit friends and relatives in the days leading up to Christmas, and they would have the house decorated beautifully. Not ours, though. Not a decoration was to be found – no presents, no garland, not even a Christmas tree.

That’s because my parents didn’t have to do any decorating. You see, my dad was in banking, and it turns out that through his business contacts at work, he knew Santa! Yup…spoke to him on a phone a few times a year, helping him out with his banking needs and such. Santa was so grateful to my father for all his help, that Santa himself brought all our decorations every year!

I’d go to bed to a normal living room each Christmas Eve, but Christmas morning, there it all was – the tree, the decorations, the presents, all there, personally delivered by the big guy himself.

Yeah, they were nuts alright.

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Yes, it was when I was 8 years old. It had taken me 3 years to wear my parents down on a Creepy Crawlers set. After apparently having done some of their own research, they decided that this was a very good toy, indeed.

I hit the jackpot. I got the basic set, the dragon set, and the big insect set all at once, as well as 5 boxes full of Plastigoop in all colors including “clear.”

We all sat around the kitchen table after breakfast and made our creepies as a family, my brother and father setting the pace with multi-colored, multi-cooked creations that really showed how well it could be done. (I still have one of the dragons).

Before that day, there was the singing around the cresch in our little New England town. It was as warm as it could be in frigid temperatures.

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Oooo, Creepy Crawlers were the best. Once my grand mother gave me some glow-in-the-dark goop, that was too cool! I only had the insect set, not the dragon set.

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Yep, there was some glow-in-the-dark in there, too. Fine memories.

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LOL…I remember vividly what a big deal the Christmas Tree lighting in our town was. Carols, and marshmellows and cider. Now it’s gotten HUGE…my town now has a Christmas Stroll, where the whole village gets into the act.

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Up until the last two years (when my cousin had a baby of her own), all of us grandkids on my dad’s side (11 of us), used to do an ornament exchange-we’d all get assigned names and then we’d give them out at our annual Christmas Day get-together. Thanks to this tradition, our trees are practically growing under the weight of all of those ornaments.

As a child? The year I was 12, and my not quite two-year-old cousin Amanda was here (with her parents, of course). At Christmas Eve dinner, she knocked over her cup-and muttered “Aaaaw, Thit!”) The next day, my cousin Tina and I tried to get her to swear again.

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Then there was the Chirstmas when I got Class A Racing. This was totally unexpected, as I hadn’t ever asked for it. This was an open track racing set that smoked anything else. The set was huuuuuge. The ‘rents had a certain sense, at times.

I currently have all 3 sets (via ebay) and play with them when the occasion demands it.

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Hypno, your description evoked such a vivd memory for me. I would never have identified that as a quintessential Christmas memory if you hadn’t given me that. Thank you!

Creepy Crawlers! We got the insect set for Christmas one year, but later acquired the dragon and the flower set. MMMM! Plasti-Goop fumes! Scalding hot metal! Glow-in-the-dark spiders to put in my older sister’s bed! What a great toy!

One of the defining elements of Christmas for me was my mother’s cookie baking. She was a stay-at-home mom, and from the day after Thanksgiving onward, baked dozens and dozens and dozens of different kinds of cookies, which she assembled into beautiful cookie trays for friends, neighbors, and Dad’s business associates.

Once the gift trays were dispersed, the remainders were put in a huge cookie tin, layer upon layer of cookies, each layer an assortment, with waxed paper between each layer. We all remember my mother sternly telling us we were not allowed to lift up the waxed paper and dig though the layers to cherry-pick our favorites.

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My visit from “Knecht Ruprecht” (The “Bad” Santa) while we still lived in Germany.

I was an only child (and acted the part) which made my Mom and Dad’s life pretty much a living hell. This was after WWII and everyone was struggling, which included American GI’s who married German Fräuleins.

My Dad worked as an “Interrogator” in Nürnberg, so I didn’t get to see much of him, but I sure as hell made my presence known in variious ways when I didn’t get what I wanted.

So Christmas 1954, they arranged for ol’ Knecht to come and visit me after evening Mass, and read me a list of stuff I had supposedly caused my parents some anguish over, and they figured that Mr. Ruprecht would set things right, and not just with a lunp of coal, either.

See, Knecht doesn’t wear red and white, and doesn’t have a nice flowing beard under kindly blue eyes. nor does he speak in mellifluous tones.

Knecht Ruprecht (the “Devil of Santa Clauses”) wears brown sack-cloth, stinks of Jägermeister, yells a lot and carries a broom made of hickory branches which he used to slap me with as he enumerated my transgressions one by frickin’ one.

By the time he was done with me, I saw my parents in a whole new light, and I promised that they would never have a spot of bother with me ever again. Mostly… :wink:

Long story short, I cried my ass off, said I was sorry, and prepared to go to bed without any presents.

But it was Heilige Abend (Christmas Eve), and the Christ-Kind (look it up) comes to visit all little boys and girls with presents, and I received some very nice ones indeed when I was summoned from my room.

And that’s my Christmas Memory.

Knecht!!!

I kick yo’ ASS, Mang!
Quasi
Just kiddin’!

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You mean like this one? It is for sale on the Dutch E-bay.