Life before kids. Remember it? Still living it? Give us your best memory. Maybe it's from your childhood when you got the best present ever! What about as a parent or grandparent?

Xmas 1977

I got the 1st Barbie Dream House and all the furniture and a black and white tv for my bedroom.  (Yes B/W - with a turn dial, and no cable - 4 stations unless UHF was used  - oh the simple good ol days)

My family left the country to spend Christmas in a warm place. When we returned home a couple of weeks later, a piano was set up in the living room. I was 9, and no one could tell me there wasn't a Santa.

Back when American Girl had 4 dolls , I wanted one so bad.  I was a little older but something about them was enchanting.  On Christmas morning "Santa" brought me Molly. I just had the doll for many years, then last year for Christmas my mom gave my daughter Molly's christmas dress.  Ilove that I can pass it on to my daughter.

I'm not sure I can pin-point just one holiday memory as the best, but if I have to pick one...

I would say that it would the process of the tree, during the early childhood, parents still together era.  We would go together and pick it out.  Mom and dad would spend a bit of time getting it ready.  Dad and lil' bro would trim the bottom, while mom and I would get the area cleared.  Then, mom would have dad turn it every direction, until it was just right.

We would break for dinner.  After dinner, the lights would go and then we would decorate.  During the decorating process, we would get to have hot chocolate and listen to Christmas music on the record player. 

The whole process was really cool.

This year, my dh, has shown his OCD behavior with buying vinyl records.  While I make fun of it, I really do enjoy having records to listen to and appreciate why he likes them so much.

I had so much fun putting our tree together, while he picked out records for us to listen to.  Though we didn't listen to a lot of Christmas music, we heard classics, like Elvis and Frank Sinatra!  Rivers ran around dancing and talked up a storm about the tree.

I am going to have to go with the tree hunting.  I loved going out in the snow with my mom and dad, sister and even the dogs came along.  I love that we are doing the same thing with our kids.

Otherwise, we always went to church at 9pm for the candlelinght service.  On the way home we passed a very large antenea that had a blinking red light on it, of course I didn't know that.  My Dad would tell me that it was Rudolph and we had to hurry and get home and to bed.  Boy I would freak out telling him to drive faster.  I'd run in the house and jump right into bed.

Boy those were the days..............

 

I believed everything my Dad told me...I worshiped him!

My best holiday memory is that I would never get that gift I really really wanted at my house and then when we went to my grandparents house they had it for me there.  It happened with my Barbie Dream house, my beloved tape recorder and my CABBAGE PATCH KID!!!  I remember feeling kinda sad and then all the joy I had when I got that "big Gift" !

my best memory... hummm

I'd have to say was when I was 5 yrs old. My sister and I were in the basement a few days before Christmas she told mom we were doing laundry(shes much older than I)but she wasn't she was just talking on the phone to the forbidden boy friend.

while she was on the phone I was playing in all the treasures on my dads work bench... oh the joy I got from pretending to use his bullet press... ... well he had a box.... a kid sized box.... I took it down off the bench right about the time I heard my sister say"I dont know what we are going to get our parents for Christmas" At that point I sat in the box and said me! I scunched up in a lil ball and fit completely in the box.

my sisters eyes lit up and she was like Oh my god Rachel that's a good idea!

So Christmas morning comes along. We had family that visited us every yr for Christmas Aunt Shirley helped out with this part of the effort. She called my mom and dad into the kitchen after we had all opened our gifts that's when our play went into action... Tracy lifted the flap I slipped in and she reminded mom and dad that there gift was still unopened... so when they came back in (which felt like an eternity) mom said she wasn't going to open it until we were all there. Tracy had told her I had gone potty and said I had to poop  (so here's this five yr old lil girl scrunched this box trying real hard not to laugh when my sister said poopy)mom said shed wait... so now it was a battle of wills with mom and Tracy.... Mom finally agreed but made aunt Shirley go to the rest room to check on me. than my mom said I'm not opening it there's something moving in there... lol that's when I jumped out of the box and screamed marry Christmas! everyone laughed my brother snapped a polaroid the moment I jumped out I think its around here some where... I see if I can find it.

but that was my best Christmas memory to date.

Hmmm....so many great memories as a child....decorating the tree, the year that my dad got the call that he was officially accepted on the fire department while we were decorating the tree, spending Christmas Eve with my dad's side of the family and Christmas day with all of my cousins on my mom's side of the family....playing the "nativity game"- we had a hand-painted (by my mom) porcelain nativity set, and when we put it away we wrapped each piece separately in newspaper.  Then the next year when we went to pick it up, we would each pick up a piece and have to guess what it was before we opened it.

And of course, Christmas 2000 will always be special, as that is when Randy proposed.  And each year seeing the kids' eyes light up with all of the lights and decorations, opening presents...it's so fun!  And there is a house that we can see from my parents' window that is always beautifully lit, and my kids insist that it's Santa's house.  They tell all of their friends that Santa lives next to Grammy and Pa.

"I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples.  For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth." -Psalm 57:9-11. 

 

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My best holiday memory with kids.....We always got one "big ticket item" from Santa which would be unwrapped.. One year it was a bike, Another year a pinball machine. Usually the big item required a lot of assembly. We would stay up nearly all night putting the thing together. We would rise very early before the kids woke up. We'd start a fire, nibble the cookies left for Santa, light the tree, set up the video camera, sit under the tree  and wait.....suddenly we'd hear the thunder of footsteps on the wood floor running down the hall and down the stairs toward the tree. Year after year we captured the look of surprise and excitement and screams of delight when the big ticket item was spotted. I should compile all those videotapes over the years and put them together.