Your Holiday Memories

Above is a Picture of a cardboard standup nativity I remember getting them when I was in grade school (19??) the nuns would give them out at Christmas time. Bobby
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It's hard to pick just one! But one of my favorites occurred during the last Christmas my mother (who loved Christmas) was still living. She was quite ill, which we all knew, but she hid it so well. We were all over at my older brother's house and decided to watch Christmas Vacation which had just come out on video. We laughed all the way through it and even though it's been 19 years, I can still see my mother laughing. Each year, never tiring of it, we watch it again and always laugh...and I remember Mama.
Jenny
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I know I sent one already, but here's another:
We got married 36 years ago a week before Christmas the middle of our Jr. year in college. It was the weekend after our finals. We didn't have any money to go on a honeymoon, so we retreated to our married housing on campus which we had secured right before the end of the semester. The campus (a state Univ in a small town in KY) was deserted, since everyone had gone home for the Christmas break, so we had the place to ourselves. My grandmother had given us a box set of wooden ornaments to make and decoupage, so we spent the week working on them. In between we would take walks in the snow - so quiet - the campus was a real magical winter wonderland. One night we walked downtown - everything was closed up except a liquor store - we stepped in to get warm. The owner was serving egg nog to whomever happened to be out braving the weather. Right outside of town there was some land being cleared for a housing development, so one night we drove out and cut a tree (since it was going to be cut any way) and brought it home and decorated it with the wooden ornaments we had finally finished. To this day, each year I get at least a few of those ornaments out of their box to place on our tree and remember that simpler, special year.
Jenny
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Hi Debbie,
The best gift I ever received was my "Dennis the Menace Dentist Set" which came with a Dennis the Menace doll that you could fix his teeth. The neatest dentist chair with lots of little dentist tools. : ) : ) : ) : ) Not that I ever wanted to be a dentist or even liked going to the dentist it was just the neatest toy to play with which was in the late 50's when I was about 11. My parents were seperated and I was living with one of my Mothers sisters. Santa brought everything on Christmas Eve the tree, lights, presents everything. I even got a letter from Santa I was afraid he might not know that I moved with my Aunt and Uncle. :):):):) It was the most magical Christmas ever! Oh if I had only saved that toy......
Thanks for asking the question...it brought back so many wonderful memories of that special Christmas sad as it was with my parents seperated.
Warmest Regards,
Kathy Brunner
(I was able to find this picture for Kathy of her favorite toy.)


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Perhaps the best gift I ever received were home-made cookies from Aunt Lill. They were layered in wax paper in a Louden Hill butter box. My brothers and I would swap each other for our favorite flavors. As years went on she knew our favorites and the swapping ceased.
The best gift I ever gave may have been a rocking chair to my then boyfriend (now husband)...did I know that someday we would rock our babies (and now our grandbabies)?
Mary Stasko
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Christmas 2008 was one of my favorites. I got my granddaughter Emmie an easel and she said "Thank you, Nana, for my WEASEL" !
Linda M.
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My favorite holiday memory is from 1940. I was four years old, and had a song to sing to a doll while sitting in a rocking chair for the church holiday pageant. I was given a beautiful doll that evening, and had to give it back after my part was over. But guess what, that doll was sitting under the Christmas tree in my home on Christmas morning just, just waiting for me!! Helen
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Favorite holiday memory - Coming home from Midnight Mass on a white and snowy evening with the sky so clear and dark the stars seem to dance along with some beautiful music. "Christ is come," they seem to sing. "Joy, joy!' Jack H.
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The Midnight Service, Christmas Eve, 1978 (or thereabouts). St. Andrew’s Church, Albany, New York. The Rev. Bruce Gray opened the service reading from John, Chapter 1. What makes this such an enduring image is that the church was illuminated with a single spotlight on the pulpit, with Father Gray resplendent in the white Vestments of Christmas. The glorious mystical quality of this passage from scripture was beautifully enhanced by the presentation of the reading. To this day, I visualize that scene whenever I hear “In the beginning was the Word”. Bob B.
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My favorite Christmas memory is looking at the city that my Grandmother and Grandfather would build under the tree every year. There was a gate with an arch and a hand carved Santa with toys on his back, one foot down and the other up as in a running pose. Santa had a red suit and white trim in all the right places.
The village had a church, several houses, a barn complete with animals that blended into the Nativity scene. The town had sidewalks and a skating pond that was really a mirror with skaters going round and round. It had cotton snow and sparkly snow and I would look at it for hours and make imaginary stories about the village in my head. The village buildings had signs: Library, Barber Shop, Market and such.
It is the one memory that will not fade.
Thanks for this opportunity to share my memory.
Fran Malone
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