Happy Christmas Memories

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The complete opposite of this thread (which had me crying), let’s tell our happy Christmas memories.

I have so many - and most are because of the kindness of friends and strangers.

My first Christmas memory was when I was almost 4. My mom and dad had just divorced and we had no money at all. My mom, two sisters and I were living in a tiny one bedroom house in a small town. We didn’t really know anyone in town. Someone (a neighbor, we think) knew about us though. On Christmas morning, we found a massive bag on our front stoop. It was filled with clothes, toys and food. We never did find out who left us the gift but I still remember it almost 22 years later.

About 5 or 6 years later, the 4 of us were living in a cruddy apartment in a large city. My mom worked full time and went to college part time. We were on Welfare and still barely got by. The “spiritual advisor” at my mom’s college (Sister Helen) organized a wonderful Christmas gift for us. She got us a huge refrigerator filled with food.

Then, of course, there’s the many years we were recipients of Angel Tree gifts (from our Church). We also got most of our Christmas and Thanksgiving meals from the Church. Another year, Sister Helen had one of her nun friends make us a gift. This woman was an excellent dollhouse builder. She made a 3 section, two floor dollhouse for us (one section for each of us). It was decorated completely with carpet, wood floors, pictures, appliances, and other furniture. Everything was handmade by the nun. The best part though - she got pictures of my sisters and me from Sister Helen. She cut out our faces and put them in three teeny frames - to be mounted on the dollhouses living room wall. My sisters never really played with the dollhouse but being a solitary child, I got a lot of mileage from it.

Another year, when I was 12, my guidance councelor at school asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Imagine my surprise when she showed up on Christmas Eve with 3 bags of goodies. One for me and one for each of my sisters.

What means the most to me isn’t all the toys and clothes I got from these people. It’s that all these people who we knew very little or not at all, still cared enough about us to make sure that 3 little kids enjoyed their holidays.

After my mom graduated from college and got a better full time job, we started giving back. Every Christmas the Catholic Hospital my mom worked for organized an “Adopt a family” program. My mom and I would always take a family with at least 2 very young children. Then, we’d buy them gifts. I usually had my mom get me one small present and then give me the rest of the money she’d spend on me. That way, I could contribute my own gifts for the kids.

I am still incapable of walking past an Angel Tree without taking at least one tag.

To me, Christmas isn’t a religious holiday. I am agnostic and have been since I was 12. But, the spirit of the season means a lot to me. I only wish that people could bring themselves to be so caring and giving the other 11 months of the year.

2

I don’t really remember any Christmas celebrations from when I was very young, other than we always had a houseful of people (I’m the youngest of 10). That and stringing popcorn to put on the tree and, when I was older, testing the big old lightbulbs to see which ones needed to be replaced.

The first Christmas I really remember was when I was 11. We had just moved across country that summer at it was our first Christmas in the new house. It was also the first Christmas when I took pictures–I got a hand-me-down camera that summer–and the year that Dad gave the family an Atari 2600.

Above all, the best Christmases were the ones spent with my niece and nephews when they were kids. Except that one in the mid-80s.

Erik, my oldest nephew, is 25 now and working for the same agency I’m in but in our HQ. I remember reading to him when he was a toddler.

Same here, except I started leaning toward agnostic later on.

3

Oh, yeah, then there was that one year when I flew down to visit one of my sisters and her family down in Texas. They were having some financial difficulties and thus weren’t able to set anything out for the kids on Christmas morning. But I had a surprise for them! I stayed up until the wee hours of Christmas morning, crept downstairs with an electric pump, and blew up one of these in the doorway between the bottom of the stairs and the tree. Darn good thing they have high ceilings.

Oh, if I could have seen the looks on everyone’s faces when they encountered that beast! I did try to warn everyone–except the boys–about my plans but they didn’t quite get the scale.

4

December last year was pretty rough for me. My baby was due December 4 but she apparently refused to make an appearance. She was pressing on my spine in such a way that it was very hard for me to walk at all and I was miserable. Miguel wasn’t finding much work and we were looking at a present-free Christmas. My 15 year old was unhappy because she was very much against having a new sibling, she was going through some bad depression, and we were struggling to even have food on the table.

I was ashamed at the time because of the charity of our friends and neighbors, but I thanked God for their kindness. People I hardly knew, people I’d prejudged, were bringing by food, inviting us to dinner, giving us things for the baby. Checking in every day…that meant the world to me.

The closer we got to Christmas the more depressed I was getting. Three days before I went to the hospital demanding that they induce labor, but I was refused. They told me to come back the day after Christmas.

Christmas Eve I cried myself to sleep.

Five a.m. Christmas morning I woke up with the worst pain yet, but hmmm…something else! :wink:

Christmas itself was crap. I mean CRAP! Isabella did NOT want to come into this world and she was turning every which way to avoid this.
My oldest daughter was so hysterical they had to take her out of the room (she was supposed to be my coach, we’d planned it for months). Bless her sweet heart, she couldn’t stand seeing momma in such pain. And holy moly I was in pain, pain I couldn’t control. This was not how we’d planned things at all!
All the while Miguel stood beside me (he hadn’t planned to be in the room because he gets ooked out by stuff like birthin’ babies). He held my hand and looked brave. My SIL took charge of coaching (has four of her own) but I eventually had to have some major drugs.

Yep, Christmas day was pretty crappy, but at exactly midnight I got my happy Christmas memory.

It’s been a year now, and things are looking up for us. There are presents under the tree this year, and my oldest has fallen in love with the sister she didn’t want. I’ve had another year to fall deeper in love with Mig and see how great a father he is. I’m getting the opportunity to be charitable with my friends and neighbors now and we’ve formed a strong bond watching Isabella grow.

This Christmas is already looking like the second happiest…or maybe the first, not sure yet.

5

The best thing you can do when somebody gives you help is accept and say thanks. I want the people I help out to take what I offer, and to stop saying I’ll pay you for this later. I want you to get better and do the same when you see someone else in a bad situation. I would offer a loan, if I wanted repayment. The last time I did something in a big way, I had to verify the money so a collection firm didn’t collect twice. I ended up getting the money paid back over the months, and it was a gift, not a loan. Take the gift and save the pay back for someone else in need.