Tell Me A Christmas Story......

Tell us an Xmas story that stands out from your childhood, good or bad.

When I was 7 I got a huge styrofoam T-Rex model, it had working jaws and everything!!!!
My dad spent hours Christmas eve building the darn thing, it was almost 7' tall! We lived in a multistory house that had a U shaped stairwell with a hallway beneath.
well that hallway was the only place my dad had enough room to build it and display it. When I saw it I was so totally excited, any 7 year old boy getting a "life size" dinosaur would be.

Well later that day my cousins came over for the whole family thing and all.

We were all in the other room, except my brother and cousin, when all of a sudden we heard a muffled crash, then an "OH Crap!" from my cousin and then running footsteps and the front door slamming shut.
Somewhere along the line my older brother and one of my cousins decided it would be fun to wrap a football up in a blanket (?) and "bomb" my dino from the second story.

He was in pieces all over the ground, ribs here and there, a leg there, a tiny arm here and his jaw was broken.
Needless to say I was devastated :bigcry: and my dad was furious.
Don't think my brother could sit for week after.

So I got to enjoy one of the coolest gifts ever for about 3 hours.



I wish I still had my T-Rex, he was nifty.



When Easter gets here I'll tell you about the time the cat used my Easter basket as a litter box......


So care to share any wonderful or traumatic Xmas stories?

 

Seek and ye shall find.

 

Sorry.... I don't recall.

 

I've got lots of them.

We hung the stockings over the fireplace in the den. The tree was in the living room. My younger brother and I were allowed to get our stockings while we waited for the rest of the family to wake up and go into the living room for the gifts.

Dad got us a go-cart one year and could only push it into the den, so that's where it was.

My brother and I did not see the go-cart at all as we went to the fireplace to get our stockings.

It wasn't until we tripped over it, headed away from the fireplace with our stockings, that we saw it!

Then it made sense why dad had been on the tractor for two days cutting this circular track where the woods had been.

We rode that go-cart so much! We and the neighbor kids really enjoyed it.

Thanks, Daddy.

 

Joy to the world

Anticipation sometimes nervous sometimes full throttle

Expectation sometimes met sometimes throttled

Love...priceless

 

I dont have any stand out memories but this year is a sad one for me as it is the first time in 30 years I won't be spending Christmas Eve at my great aunts house.

For 60 years she hosted a dinner and secret Santa gift exchange for my large extended family. I was alive to attend 29 of those celebrations. It was a magical experience as a kid to play with all my cousins, pig out on sweets, and receive a gift.


her health started failing last year around this time but she still played host to the biggest turn out in history. She passed away a few months later. I probably will never see some of my extended family again as she was the glue that held us all together.

 

Sad to hear, but at least you had 29 great years and priceless memories.

 

I'm sorry to hear that, Meli.

Families have to make new traditions. Maybe you could put some thought into creating a new, fun tradition now.

 

I got busted peeking at hidden gifts that were to be from Santa.

My mom went shopping one Saturday. Dad was outside working around the farm.

I went into mom's closet and got into the bag that contained the present I had hoped for that year.

It was Baby Grow A Tooth. That was "the" doll that year - 1968.




Suddenly, Mom came into the closet and caught me!

Her car had stalled and she had walked back to the house!

I got read the riot act and had to swear, swear, swear not to tell my younger brother that there was no Santa Claus.

I felt like shit, but really happy too!

 

thank you both.

 

my christmasses where singularly unremarkable. not that they were terrible occasions. my parents, though of modest means, were well meaning enough.
probably the most fun, and for me it really was fun, that we almost never celebrated on the same day as nearly everyone else.
the reason being, my dad, working for the railroad, in one of those kinds of jobs where the show must go on, so to speak,
still had to work whatever days weren't his regular assigned rest days.
having a relatively strong union though, whenever he had to work one of the official national holidays, christmas included,
he would be paid two and half times the number of hours he worked those days. what they called double time and a half.
his regular pay being modest enough, this was not a thing to regret.
no, the really disappointing thing, was that at least one 'present' would always be something i didn't particularly want,
and before you think i'm being unreasonable about it, nor need.
on the other paw, there would always be one or two things i really did.
no, the day itself, or the alternate day we celebrated our own on instead, wasn't that big of a thing.
oh fun enough, having a tree, with the colored lights on it. after all this was in a time long before computers.
so seeing colored lights was something a bit unusual.
but really the main thing, was having the week off from school, and the snow on the ground, when we lived where there was,
which we usually did, and the smell of pine needles.
you know, those were really the only main things.
my mother wasn't the greatest cook, nor my father, especially wise in the ways of mechanical things, though he did get by.
we didn't have any big feasts with relatives (nor often strangers either).
you see, all my mother's relatives lived half a continent away, and as for my father's, i've yet to in my life meet any of them.

so there were just the three of us, a pride of semi-feral domestic cats, and the occasional dog.

 

"Be sure to drink your Ovaltine,"

 

"what a gip!!!"

 

Another Christmas that stands out in my mind is the Christmas Eve that my husband proposed to me. It was beautiful. It was magickal.

My first husband and I just sort of decided to get married. He never bought me a ring. I wore my mother's old set during that marriage. That was weird and it hurt me that he never bought me a wedding ring.

When my current husband proposed to me in front of the Christmas tree, on bended knee and completely surprised me with an engagement ring, I was beyond ecstatic because that's the way our love was.

That's been 16 years ago. The relationship has gone through so many changes. The man has gone through so many changes. Now, it's a marriage like I never wanted. Romantically estranged partners sleeping in separate rooms. Parenting our grown children and grandchildren on the buddy system.

I've learned alot about what loving someone entails. It's more than I ever imagined.

My beautiful ring; the symbol of all I hoped and dreamed for; was sold to the pawn shop for practically nothing. I sold it so that I could pay for my husband's prescription medications during a leaner than lean time.

So fucking bittersweet that it leaves me stoic, at best.

 

Okay... Here's a good one. Not particularly a Christmas Story, but close enough.


A few years ago on a Christmas eve, fairly late evening, I bought a guitar on eBay. Nothing too fancy, a cheap LesPaul goldtop copy with P90s. It was new, I think the guy selling them got some samples made up and imported... I got it out of Michigan. Despite a nasty storm between Christmas and New Years that year this guy got it shipped and I got it on the 28th of December. I tuned it up a few times and briefly checked it out, it needed a good setup, but hell it was cheap. At least the construction was sound, nice enough finish work.

Satisfied with my Christmas guitar I set it on my bench in the studio... "Gonna work on it tomorrow."



"Tomorrow" never came... My house burned down that night.



A few weeks go by, I'm back online from a motel room, leave this guy glowing feedback for his shipping prowess. While I'm there I write him via eBay thanking him again and I mentioned how ironic it was that my house burned the night I got the guitar and I never really got to do much with it but it seemed nice, good luck with your brand and have a happy new year...


A few days later I get a message back from him, Knowing I no longer have the house he wants another address where It would be safe to send out another guitar. I told him that wasn't necessary but he sent a second guitar to my neighbor's place across the street. He said it was okay because it was the one he kept out of the sample run for himself...


After I got it I wrote him back, thanking him again for his generosity and saying that he really didn't have to do that. He writes me back... He really did have to send it. His young daughters wanted him to...

 

my grandmothers brother was the mall santa

so our family gathering always got a special visit from the same exact santa ...and he knew all our names and info that a fake santa could never know...so that made him real

 

My mom used to buy my older brothers Levis and cartons of cigarettes for Christmas. That got big smiles.

 

Once upon a time i was alittle girl....
I remembered looking through a Christmas catalog, and falling in love with a doll, and told my parents I wanted that doll. I dreamed about that doll.
I remember the feelings I had reading a book of adult Christmas stories, and there was one in particular that stuck with me.
I rememeber these things with precision and when I think of these memories, i feel the same things all over again......

 

i remember ovaltine. it had its own unique flavour. i also liked the flavour postum. also carob was ok.

i'd never confuse one thing with the other, or think of anything as a substitute for something else. i do think ovaltine was over priced for what it was.

not sure what that has to do with christermass or solstice eve. these things were year round rather then seasonal.
at least they were where i lived. the carob and postum didn't become big where i was until the 70s, and my childhood was in the 50s.

 

Themnax--you may mean --ta-da----Postom. Don't know if I spelled it correctly, but I used to drink it too.