What is Your Favorite Christmas Memory

I grew up with my Grandparents and my Dad. We lived in a big farm house.. We didn't have much in the way of things, but we were loved. I remember my oldest sister and I woke up early on Christmas morning because we were hearing noises in the living room. Every board in the old house creaked when you walk.
But we were determined to catch Santa. We tiptoed out of a bedroom that we shared with our dad and another sister. We tried to make our way down the hall to the living room without getting caught by Dad. We peeped through the key hole and it wasn't Santa that we saw. Our Granddaddy sat in the floor under the Christmas tree. It seems we really got some presents that year. There was a metal doll house with pieces of furniture for each room. He had decorated all the rooms. There was a spinning top and it was spinning across the living room linoleum floor. There was also a merry go round with horses that played music as the horses marched around in a circle up and down. We quietly made our way back to bed and marveled at how our granddaddy was having such fun playing with our toys. He probably had never seen so much for kids at Christmas. I guess we didn't want to spoil the fun for him. :nod: I love my memory of that morning.

I'll post my most horrid memory.

When I was 12 years old, I peeked at all of my presents. My Mom used a foil type wrapping paper that the tape easily peeled off of without ripping the paper. One day when they were out and I was home alone, I peeked at all of the presents that were for me.

A pair of skates

A new jewellery box

A bottle cutting kit

A pair of pajamas

On Christmas morning I had to act all surprised, but it was the most rotten Christmas for me because I ruined it.  I learned then that the anticipation of the presents under the tree was the best part, and opening them on the Christmas morning was the second best part.

So that is why I don't open presents early and I wait for Christmas morning.

I think the best Christmas for me was about 4 years ago.  I hated Christmas for so long because it was always so commercialized and filled with gimme, gimme, gimme!  In fact my family used to call me in September and give me their Christmas wish list and ask me for mine!!  And I don't think I ever gave them anything they were happy with that didn't end up being returned or exchanged.

Four years ago my brother had a fire in their house and was living in a 3 bedroom apartment not far from me.  They weren't going to do Christmas that year, but I convinced them too.  Her family and I all brought stuff (dishes, pots, appliances, chairs etc), and it wasn't about the gifts. It was about the people and getting together to spend time together.  Best Christmas ever!!!!

Best Christmas - It was the last Christmas my parents were both alive. Everybody was at our house for Christmas dinner. Everybody. The kitchen was so crowded; we had the leaves in the table to make it larger, and then we had a smaller table, too. It was crowded; it was chaotic. There were 22 of us. And we loved it. I did the cooking, but my nieces came over in the morning to help, so it was the three of us in the kitchen. And we had such a good time. Both my father and my aunt (his sister) died by the following Christmas and Mom died last year. While we still all get together, it's not the same without Mom and Dad. It's just not. They're not here, but they're here in memory. And sometime during Christmas dinner, my sister and I will look at each other....we don't say a word, but we raise our glasses and toast Mom and Dad. I don't think anybody else even notices that we do it. But we know. And life is good.

Scary Christmas Eve - Many years ago, on Christmas Eve, we were all going to my parents for dinner and to open gifts. It was snowing like crazy, but back then, nothing stopped us. We were all expected to be there and we were always there. I had done most of the cooking and we piled everything into the car, food and gifts. I was driving....and no way was I going down that hill to the highway. I went the back way to the highway, and had to go down a huge hill anyway, but we were hoping that hill would be plowed and cindered since that was on a state highway. It wasn't. So we're driving down the hill. In the other lane, a car was coming up the hill and, just that quickly, he slid over to our side of the highway and plowed into the car in front of us. And both vehicles slammed into the bank along the road. I tried to stop and couldn't. And we started sliding and slid to the bottom of the hill and there were times we were in all four lanes....it was scary; we kept sliding back and forth and back and forth the whole way down; the only thing that saved us was that there were no other vehicles the entire time we were sliding down the hill. I got the car back under control and got to my parents' house. We immediately called the police to report the accident, but we didn't go back. Til we left my parents' house later that night, the roads were in much better shape and we made it home safely. (I hate driving in this stuff, but I can drive in it, if I have to.)

Probably the last one we had with our Dad. I miss him so much.