What was your fondest Christmas Memory?

[corarose]

My Mom use to pretend that we had just missed Santa. She would send my Sister and I to the store for candy and of course we would go. When we got back she had pulled a sleigh through the snow and made it look like Santa had been there. She would throw some hay out or shredded wheat out by the door and she would drop a bell like one of the reindeer's had lost their bell and then she would eat part of a cookie and drink a half a glass of milk.
She planned the whole scene out so damn good that we cried because we missed Santa.
My fondest memory was when I was 5 and my Sister and I went to get some of that get lost candy because Santa's coming.
When we got back from the store she played her routine again and then she gave me a crate and the crate was moving and I opened it and I had a small Pug Puppy in the crate and my Sister got Beatles Dolls and a Barbie Dream house that was made out of cardboard.
My Dad was always at work so he wasn't at home most of the time when us girls were unwrapping our presents. He worked at the Sun Times and they made him work on Holidays.
I named that Dog Sinbad and he died when he was 5 years old in an epileptic seizure.

[SiobhanClancy]

1. My daughter's first Christmas...

I'll never forget how her eyes sparkled when she saw the Christmas tree for the first time. She didn't really know yet what was going on,but she knew it was good:)
When I was a child,my father used to read(an abridged version)of A Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve ,and he did different voices for all the characters...that was wonderful. He also taught me that Santa was sick of everyone leaving milk and cookies,and that what Santa really preferred was a ham and swiss sandwich,with a shot of Bushmill's. When I finally found out who Santa really was,this made perfect sense to me.
Also on Christmas Eve,we went to midnight mass and when we came home everyone got to choose a gift from under the tree and open it.
The best gift I ever recieved was when I was 13...there wasn't much under the tree for me,and I was trying to be cool about it. Then my dad told me I needed to take a ride with him. We drove a few miles out into the country,turned into a place I knew was a riding stable. Waiting inside was a beautiful little mare named Anisette,who was my first horse.
Never let anybody tell you there is no Santa Claus...there was,and his name was Adam Patrick O'Neill:)

[Robb]

2. I remember doing a Christmas play

...All of us were working together on it, we had a script and it was OK, but I really wanted to get at the true meaning of Christmas. Everyone told me I had to go find the tree for the play, and I saw all these "commercialized" trees, and finally brought back a little one. Boy, were the kids mad.

Anyhow, my friend wrapped it in a blanket and it grew to enormous proportions. We climbed up to the top and met a giant, who had a goose that laid hand grenades.

I don't remember much more after that.

[Rabrrrrrr]

3. What *was* my fondest memory?

I've forgotten! :evilgrin:

[corarose]

5. I am from Chicago & I was raised by Hillbilly's

So I made a mistake "use guys" should know me by now. Plus I type so fast sometimes I type too damn fast.
I also used past tense because I don't have Christmases anymore.

HELL I MADE A DAMN MISTAKE.

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. I know! Nothing wrong.

Just giving you some cheese. :evilgrin:

I bet your family wasn't as hillbilly as mine - I was in WI, growing up working on actual farms!

[VelmaD]

4. Every year is wonderful

My family and friends do a very low-stress holiday. There's lots of baking of xmas goodies. There's tons of presents - nothing fancy but picked with care. There's pizza on xmas eve and everybody onver at my parents house to open presents and play Trivial Pursuit and then go ride around and look at th exmas lights. I can't pick one year and say "that one was the best" because it's all good. :-)

One thing I do remember that I miss now is how much my dog loved xmas cookies. I miss her.

[corarose]

7. My Dog Toby loved Chocolates and he didn't die from eating them

He would take his poodle nose and steal one out of the box when you were not looking.
He favorites were Fanny Mae's. One year we ordered from Figies it is a catalog company from Wisconsin and Toby put one chocolate in his mouth and spit it back out that it was horrible and our expressway girl Lulu came along and ate it off the floor when he dropped it. Lulu didn't care as long as she was fed she was a good dog.

[Awsi Dooger]

8. Opening a box that held poodle Apollo, my boyhood pal

I was 9 years old and my sister was 6. We had one previous dog, but he was overly aggressive and my dad sold him to a local hunter.

My parents bought Apollo several weeks earlier, but kept it a secret and he stayed at my grandparents' home. To this day, my parents laugh about the little dog moving around in the box for quite a while on Christmas morning before my sister and I got around to opening it.

Apollo was a little black joy, but his first move was to dart under the closest couch. My sister asked where he had been in the box when I opened it, so I put him back to demonstrate. That was instant ammo for persistent ribbing from my parents ever since -- "Oh, a dog. How nice. Let's put him back and see what else we got."

Every friend of mine loved to come over and play with Apollo. He took every game we invented to levels beyond what we could imagine. Many of my childhood friends reminisce about Apollo to this day. Sadly, he was killed at age 8, hit by a car a few hours after the Super Bowl.

[arwalden]

9. Being Small Enough To Lie Down Beneath A Fully Decorated LIVE Tree...

and look up through the branches at all the ornaments, lights, tinsel and to smell that wonderful live tree aroma!

I still love everything about our Winter Solstice trees... even if I can't crawl under them too easily. (However... even as an adult, I've been known to lie on the floor and put just my head under the tree. For just a moment I'll peer up into the decorated tree to remind myself of the joy and wonder I felt as a child. It's not quite the same, but it's a nice memory.

-- Allen

[trof]

10. My granny's Christmas story.

Late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve granny and I would make a batch of gingerbread men. They had raisin eyes and Hershey Bar smiles. While they were still warm from the oven, she'd pour me a glass of cold milk and pull her big old rocking chair over in front of the fireplace near the Christmas tree.
I'd climb up in her lap.

"Granny, tell me a story."

"OK, honey. Once upon a time there was a little boy who had been very, very good. It was Christmas Eve and he was eagerly awaiting a visit from Santa Clause."

"No, no, granny! Tell me about the time you were a hooker in the Yukon and the candles caught the Christmas tree on fire and the whorehouse burned down."

And she would nod her head and smile and begin the age-old Christmas story.
;-)

[mitchum]

11. When my Cousin Sook would make her fruitcakes...

oops, wait a minute...that's not my memory

[SiobhanClancy]

12. lol..haven't you heard?

There is actually only ONE fruitcake in the entire world. It is just making the rounds in perpetuity until it has visited every last person on the planet.