Where are you Christmas?

[matriarch]

Christmas in the 21st century:

Mercy kits - the gift that goes on giving.

 

[3113]

Our first Christmas in Bangkok...

That is one of the best Xmas stories I've ever heard. If you haven't all ready, I think you should write it up for some Xmas story contest. I especially liked the part about the fire ants...

 

[Katyusha]

"Can anyone tell me what Christmas is all about?"

I think it's something different for everyone. For me, it's a time to be together with loved ones, whether there are gifts and decorations or not. The last two years my husband and I were on the road and couldn't get lots of gifts because of extremely limited space in the hotels, and so we'd make sure to make Christmas night as special as possible, which usually meant going to the prettiest part of whatever town we were in, no matter how cold, and sitting and staring at the stars/landmarks/lights/whatever was around.

Share with me some of your Christmas memories, funny ones are best. What got you in the spirit? What was the one gift you remember most? What are your favorite parts of the holiday? the wrapping? buying? baking? drinking?

I have two favorite Christmas memories...and I think they were the same year but they weren't both on Christmas day. When we all still lived in Arizona, my family would decorate Dad's house on Thanksgiving Day after dinner because it was the only time we were all going to be able to be together between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Dad's tree is nine feet tall and I can't remember for the life of me exactly what happened, but one moment he was on a chair hanging an ornament near the top and the next minute, the chair had tipped and he fell right into the tree, knocking it over and knocking half the ornaments off. He got up laughing and we were all laughing, and we picked up the tree, put the branches back in place and looked for broken ornaments. Amazingly enough, there weren't any, but we couldn't finish the decorating without ribbing him about it.

The other was Christmas Day. Christmas dinner is always Italian food. We're not Italian but it's Dad's favorite type of food and since Christmas is also his birthday he gets a break and we all fix a big, elaborate Italian dinner for him, with most things made from scratch. Anyway, we were about halfway through with dinner and my older sister starts trying to scrape every last bit of sauce off her plate with her fork. And I do mean *scrape,* as in, it looked and sounded like she was trying to scrape the glaze off the china. I had a forkful of food about halfway to my mouth when I noticed that, and I paused with my fork in midair and stared at her, while slowly becoming aware that Dad and my younger sister were staring at her too. My husband (then my fiancee) was watching the rest of us and watching her, and my older sister was just totally oblivious to everything while she made sure that every last microscopic speck of sauce was off her plate. Then she glanced up, saw all of us staring at her and said, "WHAT?!" Which sent the rest of us into absolute gales of laughter...I dropped my forkful of food back onto my plate and almost fell out of my chair, little sister buried her face in her hands, hubby had tears streaming down his face and Dad actually had to leave the room to compose himself. And big sis stared at all of us confused as all hell about what was so funny.

I don't think she ever did get it.

And this might be one of those ya-hadda-be-there things. But I doubt I'll ever forget that.

My favorite part of the holiday is actually the decorating. I'm not too much of a fan of shopping or wrapping and never did enjoy cooking all that much unless I was cooking with a bunch of other people. But the decorating...I can decorate all day all by myself and as long as there's good music playing in the background I'll love it.

Maybe one day they will have a shot like you get for the flu only its a christmas spirit shot filled with the joy of the holiday. I'll be first in line.

Maybe. A lot of people get depressed around the holidays and not always because they miss someone, although that's what most people assume. Lots of people get depressed because they can't find holiday cheer for whatever reason. I've had years like that, where it feels like Christmas doesn't mean anything anymore. My holiday cheer always comes back at some Christmas down the road though...maybe it will for you too.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Thank you all for sharing your holidays and opinions with me.

 

[sr71plt]

That is one of the best Xmas stories I've ever heard. If you haven't all ready, I think you should write it up for some Xmas story contest. I especially liked the part about the fire ants...

Why thank you. This is a condensation of a version that was published some twenty years ago in the Foreign Service Officers' journal.

I've enjoyed the other reminiscing I've read on this thread as well.