Favorite Christmas Memories

[BigFish]

Lets all share some of our greatest Christmas memories, be they childhood memories or otherwise, lets hear them! I will start with a few!

Christmas eve at my house as a boy were the best and my favorite part of Christmas! After dinner my family would gather in the living room by the tree and exchange Christmas gifts. My older sister would pass all the gifts out from under the tree and once they were all passed out, we would take turns going around the room and each would open a gift while we all watched and could see what the gifts were! This would take sometimes 3-4 hours and it was alot of fun. Especially when the gifts from my Aunt were opened....my Aunt Dottie (bless her memory) had a knack for giving some pretty, shall we say unusual gifts. For example, one Christmas I got a pair of dress socks from her, I was about 12? Anyway, the ankle part of the sock was about 6 inches long and the foot part was about 12 inches long and we all laughed about that because they looked just like one of those plastic hockey stick blades you would put on your stick (you know the ones?). Christmas music would be playing softly in the background, there would be a fire burning warmly in the fireplace and we would have fun balling up the wrapping paper and trying to hit the basket with it from across the room and all the while we would be remembering moments from Christmas past......just really memorable and special times at my house at Christmas time. We have all of the old home movies and I had them put on a video tape quite a few years ago for my Dad as a Christmas gift....it was one of the most enjoyable gifts I think he ever recieved....he really enjoyed that every year until he passed away. It is a little hard to watch it now for my family but I watch it because they were such happy times and my folks were so very good to us growing up. We were truely blessed and I try very hard to give my sons the same love and tradition at Christmas time as I had.

Side Note- The thing we always laugh hardest about is the old 8mm Bell and Howell movie camera my Dad had (some of you know where I am going with this ) and the blinding light bar that you had to use with it....it had 4 lights on it that were about 500,000,000 candlepower on it (I swear they threw off so much heat that the wallpaper would start curling on the walls) and all you see is everyone squinting Christmas morning as we stumbled down the stairs to find out whether Santa had come or not......he always did! He was always so good to us.

Enjoy your holiday folks, I hope they are special and the memories you make last you a lifetime.