What's your favorite holiday memory from your childhood?

[Deleted User]

My mom loved to decorate for the holidays. She would wait until everyone went to sleep one random day in December and we would wake up to a fully decorated house. We would still do the tree together though. One year she cut out a bunch of snowflakes and had them hanging from the ceiling. When we were little we thought that the  decorating was part of Santa's magic too. I loved it. It's something I really want to do with my kids.

myfriendscallmemeg

My mom never put gifts under the tree before Christmas Eve. So when we woke up Christmas morning there was a huge difference between empty tree and Christmas morning tree filled with presents tree. Plus all the presents were wrapped, I love wrapped gifts.

FrickandFrack

"Santa" would make a mess for us to find on Christmas morning. Chairs would be knocked over, there would be a trail of hershey kisses leading from the fire place to the Christmas tree, soot footprints, etc. It was so magical.

[Deleted User]

I really loved baking cookies for Santa. We would have dozens of cookies. They were always my dad's favorite cookies of course. For days before Christmas our house would smell like cookies. It was the one time when I refused to eat a cookie because I didn't want Santa to be mad at me. I ate them all after Christmas though. You snooze you lose Santa.

credcat7

One year every family member got me some type of strawberry shortcake doll toy play dough or coloring book, I really wanted hot wheels

tbmadeamistake

We would all lay out our ginormois stockings together on Christmas eve. On Christmas morning mom would come into our rooms to ask if we wanted juice, milk or tea. Once she was back up with all the drinks, we'd all find spots in mom and dad's room and open our stockings together. I loved it, still do. My spot was always on bed between mom and dad...and stayed that way until I had a kid of my that I had to help. It's a tradition we are starting this year at our own house with our kids.

ready-or-not

Christmas Eve at my Grandparents. They had 5 kids & all their kids married & had 3+ kids so I have a ton of cousins & we're all close in age so it was always a great time. I remember my grandma would always corral us littles into a room & we'd do a story train, where she'd start off telling us a story, then would pass it on to someone else to take over. We had to leave my cousin Derreck for the last cause he'd kill off the main character every time lol its funny the little things you remember after so many years

[Deleted User]

We were a military family so we moved a lot. I hated it. The constant changes and adjustments were really hard on me. The one thing that always stayed the same was Christmas. No matter what our house was decorated by magic and Santa could always find us. If my dad was deployed we would make Christmas boxes for him so Santa could deliver it for us.

pepperedmoth

OK I'm late to the party but the best was Advent. We were Catholic, and Mom put together a Nativity on the side table.

The first Sunday in Advent it was just a circle of rocks, the second week we added the greenery, the third week we added the animals, the fourth week we added the people, and on Christmas Eve we added baby Jesus.

Each Sunday evening we had fun putting in the next pieces together, lit the candles, turned out the rest of the lights in the house, and sang Christmas carols together.

It was so magical. Every week the light was brighter (you light an additional candle every week) and the Nativity was more elaborate and we were so excited for Christmad and it was just amazing.

chardonnay24

I would always wake up around 4 am and sneak downstairs to stare at the tree Christmas morning. My parents would fill the stockings and put presents under the tree before they went to bed Christmas Eve, and it was absolutely magical to see the tree all lit up and the stockings bulging first thing in the morning before anyone else was up.

HakunaMatata04

We couldn't go downstairs until mom did to get our picture as we went down with my dad and saw our gifts. Santa didn't wrap presents and on Christmas eve we opened pj's and something small after church. All traditions i want to carry with my family