Favorite holiday memory?

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dogmom

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What are people's favorite holiday-season memories?

one of mine is walking around the neighborhood with my dad when I was a younger kid, maybe 7-11 years old or something like that, to see other people's Christmas or holiday lights. It was often snowy and sometimes the different colors affected the snow, kinda pretty. My dad and I just spent time together, walking, he'd hold my hand. I was an only child.
 
On the 26th of december i would spend the day with my brother. We would go have a picnic in a park near his house and then we would watch the sky. We would say what each cloud look like. We would eat abd talk about our dreams and what we were writing about at moment. It was always fun to have that one day with him.
 
Celebrating Hanukkah with my Dad's best friend and family during childhood. Hanukkah gelt and chocolate halvah.

Going to the mall and watching the Christmas shoppers.

Going downtown in the nighttime and seeing the elaborate lighting displays they had when I was a child.
 
My father had a small pine tree nursery on part of my parents' property. So we would have a real tree and everything we used to decorate it (except for the star on top) was made of food. We strung popcorn, we strung cranberries, made gingerbread men, and sugar cookies cut out and decorated in Christmas shapes, and hung all that on the tree, along with hershey's kisses in red, green and silver foil. And candy canes. The living room smelled really good:)

The picture is from a few years ago when I did a miniature version, and without the sugar cookies.

amylynne-albums-what-picture5886-christmas-tree-kind-like-when-i-kid.jpg
 
Bottesini said:
Celebrating Hanukkah with my Dad's best friend and family during childhood. Hanukkah gelt and chocolate halvah.

Going to the mall and watching the Christmas shoppers.

Going downtown in the nighttime and seeing the elaborate lighting displays they had when I was a child.
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Dad would take us to Boston to see the stores Christmas displays, JM and Macy's and Filene's had the moving dolls dress in old fashion cloths . We got to drink wine at Passover and it was not grape juice . Dad would hide the Matzo for Chanukah and whoever find it got $$$. Dad would start of with $1.00 and raise it $5.00 and we all try to find it find. I found the matzo one year in the box of tissues and my ex brother said it did not count because the matzo was broken in half , I still got the money!
 
:ty: everybody, I enjoyed reading people's stories!

Bott, your memory brought back to mind when I got yummy gelt too, and sitting with my zayde lighting the menorah! Watching my dad and zayde put on yarmulkes and tallit....

I remember the first time I realized about the differences between what we did in my family and what most of my friends did- I was at someone's house and saw an actual tree up close. I was maybe 8 or 9 or something, we played with all my friend's gifts and she got one of those wooden bean bag box toss games, where the thing sits on the floor and you throw the bean bags in. I was amazed at seeing all those ornaments.


Amy, I like your picture - looks like a cool tree and I bet you had fun!
Your edible childhood tree - how long til it was 'naked' ? <grin>
yeah I bet the room made people hungry!

whatdidyousay, oh, yes, the Kedem and the afikommen...I honestly never knew about the matzoh-hiding til I was older cause we didn't do that at my house. But I watched the kids with that at synagogue parties many years later and saw how much fun they have.
Hiding it in the tissues - smart of your dad and smart that you looked there!
I'm glad you still got the money:cool2:

dreamer, your day sounds so serene, what a beautiful memory....
 
Seeing the Christmas tree all decked out for the 1st time Christmas morning. That was as special as all the presents under it (6 kids).
My dad would put the tree up Christmas Eve & put the lights on it. Then Santa would decorate it when he came.
I kept that tradition when we had our girls, even though my husband preferred to put the tree up earlier. Eventually got a fake tree for him. :)
We keep the tree & decorations up till after Jan 6th.
I hate seeing discarded trees the days after Christmas.
 
LoveBlue said:
Seeing the Christmas tree all decked out for the 1st time Christmas morning. That was as special as all the presents under it (6 kids).
My dad would put the tree up Christmas Eve & put the lights on it. Then Santa would decorate it when he came.
I kept that tradition when we had our girls, even though my husband preferred to put the tree up earlier. Eventually got a fake tree for him. :)
We keep the tree & decorations up till after Jan 6th.
I hate seeing discarded trees the days after Christmas.
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I hate seeing the discarded trees too. One year some #@*+# ! when into the woods and they cut the tops off evergreen trees and this end up killing a lot of trees. The tops where sold as 'Christmas tree' . This is illegal to do but some people do not know the meaning of Christmas.
 
holidays.......i tend to remember little of them.
 
dogmom said:
Your edible childhood tree - how long til it was 'naked' ? <grin>
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I think if we did that any other time of the year it would have happened really fast, but at Christmas time, there was so much other stuff to eat, the tree would make it through the season. Everything would get eaten eventually, but I think when we took the tree down we'd probably put the uneaten stuff into a bowl or something like that.
 
Bundling up with my family and relatives in my Dad's red 1977 Chevy Impala wagon to look at lights.
 
Oh, sure, I hadn't thought of all the other food there often is, amylynne.
The cranberries are very creative and what a beautiful array of colors!

derek, I used to know a few people with a Chevy Impala Wagon in my childhood.
My dad had a maroon Chevy Impala 4-door he inherited from his mom, when his dad died. He drove it back during a snowstorm, after he left from the funeral in the Twin Cities.
We would sometimes take the car and look at other people's Christmas lights, too.

There was - and still is - a particular well-known neighborhood in the larger metro area that has a wide range of huge or complex displays of lights, which every year they put up and advertise as a neighborhood thing. It's several blocks and I recall riding in the car, in a line of other cars, driving slowly along to see the lights.
 
My favorite memory was seeing the sight of beautiful luminarias in their homes and other business buildings. I used to go with someone to ride through the Old Town of Albuquerque where I used to lived for long time. I love seeing the lights brighten up the city. I never forget about this which I see them every year while I was living in New Mexico many years ago before moving up to Canada.

I am back here from Canada and we are living in the back of the people's homes and can not be seen, so this year we did not line up the luminarias, the traditional way this year. Beside we are getting too old to put luminarias up on our houses. :(

Just Christmas trees lights.

Traditionally, luminarias are made from brown paper bags weighted down with sand and illuminated from within by a lit candle. These are typically arranged in rows to create large and elaborate displays. The hope among Roman Catholics is that the lights will guide the spirit of the Christ child to one's home.

In recent times they are seen more as a secular decoration, akin to Christmas lights. Strings of artificial luminarias, with plastic bags illuminated by small light bulbs and connected by an electrical cord, are also available, and are common in the American Southwest, where they are typically displayed throughout the year-end holiday season. These are beginning to gain popularity in other parts of the United States.

Santa Fe and Old Town Albuquerque, New Mexico, are well known for their impressive Christmas Eve farolito (luminarias to their Spanish name) displays. Farolito displays are common throughout New Mexico, and most communities in New Mexico have farolitos in prominent areas such as major streets or parks. Residents often line their yards, fences, sidewalks, and roofs with farolitos. Similar traditions can now also be found in many other parts of the nation including California. :D
 
Being able to sleep in and not spending butt loads of money... :laugh2: Seriously, the sleeping in on Christmas and WANTING to wake up was the best part... The past few years my alarm goes off and I bury myself deeper in the blankets and pull the pillow over my head hoping I really have 20 more minutes... :doh: :P
 
Backyard cricket. Water fights with family members. Eating everything in sight.
 
dogmom said:
Oh, sure, I hadn't thought of all the other food there often is, amylynne.
The cranberries are very creative and what a beautiful array of colors!

derek, I used to know a few people with a Chevy Impala Wagon in my childhood.
My dad had a maroon Chevy Impala 4-door he inherited from his mom, when his dad died. He drove it back during a snowstorm, after he left from the funeral in the Twin Cities.
We would sometimes take the car and look at other people's Christmas lights, too.

There was - and still is - a particular well-known neighborhood in the larger metro area that has a wide range of huge or complex displays of lights, which every year they put up and advertise as a neighborhood thing. It's several blocks and I recall riding in the car, in a line of other cars, driving slowly along to see the lights.
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If you somehow have Impala pictures, feel free to share them.
 
I have lots of wonderful memories. The one that really makes me smile is when my youngest was around 6. The older siblings didn't believe in Santa anymore and my youngest was asking a lot of questions. That night, after they went to bed, I got my hubbies work boot, put baby powder on the souls, then stomped all over my carpet in front of the fireplace. The look on her face was priceless. Mom (me) pretended to be upset that Santa got my new carpet all dirty.
 
No childhood memories really. I always kind of dreamed what a "family" Christmas was like. When I was in my early 20's we had an orphan Christmas. You brought a unisex gift and you were supposed to bring a hot dish of some kind. We wound up with allot of chips and hot dogs. Already had canned chili so we made chili dogs. ( go figure ) All the gifts went under a tree. The food got put out and we ate. Then the gifts were passed about. I know it does not sound like much, but that was my first Christmas that I felt like I belonged. This was all planned and put in place on Christmas eve BTW. Allot of the gifts were from the 24hr stores. Gifts did not matter really. We played board games all night. On Christmas day we all went tubing on pines hil. Froze our butts off. It was a good time.
 
Angel1989 said:
I have lots of wonderful memories. The one that really makes me smile is when my youngest was around 6. The older siblings didn't believe in Santa anymore and my youngest was asking a lot of questions. That night, after they went to bed, I got my hubbies work boot, put baby powder on the souls, then stomped all over my carpet in front of the fireplace. The look on her face was priceless. Mom (me) pretended to be upset that Santa got my new carpet all dirty.
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I saw something similar posted on FB this year. It was outlining the boots with the powder to leave the foot prints. I'm sure many kids & parents enjoyed that.
 
One year, when my youngest was still young, my oldest daughter and I went into her room to wake her up. She didn't want to wake up. We told her someone had come last night and her head popped up and her eyes lit up. :)

This year, she's 20 now, I have a pic of her excited face when she realized that the ice skate box indeed had ice skates in it. Priceless.
 
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