Holiday Memories

[CB_Catholic]

It’s getting to be that time of year again, and now that I am older with grown children and now grandchildren, I’ve done a bit of reminiscing about the holidays. How about sharing some of your favorite memories?
I’ll share one of mine. My children were 2 and 31/2 and we heard jingle bells outside on Christmas Eve. I sent the kids to another room to look out the window and while they were doing that, we heard a thump and a deep voice cry “HELP” coming from the living room. We ran into the living room and lo and behold, Santa Claus (who looked a lot like my BIL) had his butt stuck in the fireplace! “HO HO HO” he says, “I’m stuck and I can’t get out!”

My 3 year old daughter ran right to him, grabbed his arm and tried to pull him out of the fireplace (brave girl), but when I turned to look for my son, he was nowhere to be found. We searched the house for him, and finally found him, down in the basement family room, huddled behind the couch with eyes as big as saucers. Poor thing was scared to death! I spent some time calming him and then took him upstairs to meet Santa Claus, and after he got his toy he was happy. But he would not approach Santa again until he was about 4.
My bad, I didn’t realize he would be so scared, but now it makes for a good family story.

 

[hdog]

---

It’s getting to be that time of year again, and now that I am older with grown children and now grandchildren, I’ve done a bit of reminiscing about the holidays. How about sharing some of your favorite memories?
I’ll share one of mine. My children were 2 and 31/2 and we heard jingle bells outside on Christmas Eve. I sent the kids to another room to look out the window and while they were doing that, we heard a thump and a deep voice cry “HELP” coming from the living room. We ran into the living room and lo and behold, Santa Claus (who looked a lot like my BIL) had his butt stuck in the fireplace! “HO HO HO” he says, “I’m stuck and I can’t get out!”

My 3 year old daughter ran right to him, grabbed his arm and tried to pull him out of the fireplace (brave girl), but when I turned to look for my son, he was nowhere to be found. We searched the house for him, and finally found him, down in the basement family room, huddled behind the couch with eyes as big as saucers. Poor thing was scared to death! I spent some time calming him and then took him upstairs to meet Santa Claus, and after he got his toy he was happy. But he would not approach Santa again until he was about 4.
My bad, I didn’t realize he would be so scared, but now it makes for a good family story.

what a nice story!! did you get him out of there? good thing yall didn’t have the yule log on.

 

[CB_Catholic]

what a nice story!! did you get him out of there? good thing yall didn’t have the yule log on.

Oh the 3 year old managed to get him out

 

[Cat]

One of our best memories is meeting the real Santa Claus–??!

We met him at a mall in Raleigh, North Carolina. My daughter was about 5, and she waited to meet him with all the other kids. He was an elderly man with white hair and a long white beard–all real. He was chubby, but not corpulent.

She told him her name–it’s an unusual name, Evangeline–but considering that lots of names were unusual, I didn’t think it was particularly memorable. My daughter was just a typical little blonde girl, like a thousand others. And I believe the list she gave Santa was nothing special–My Little Ponys, perhaps a Barbie. No wish for cancer cures or world peace or something that might have touched the man’s heart.

We came back to the mall two weeks later for some more shopping, and my daughter wanted to see Santa again. When she got up to his lap, he greeted her by name, and remembered what she had asked for.

I was amazed. He must have seen thousands of children since meeting my daughter two weeks earlier. But he remembered her, her name, and her Christmas list.

In my heart of hearts, I’m guessing that perhaps he was a man with a photographic memory. But I can’t help but wonder… was he the real Santa, spending a little time in the South?

I actually looked for his reindeer and sleigh after we left the mall.

 

[VivienneJ]

Christmas '93.

We were on holiday in an adjoining country; there had been a last minute cancellation of our accommodation for the nights of 24th and 25th December (the owners had decided they wanted to use their cottage themselves after all ); our travel agent managed to find us “something else”.

It was the most dreadful place! The weeds outside were knee high (some were waist high); inside was small and cramped and, worst of all, dirty; the oven didn’t work; hot water was made by making a fire to heat the water and even a roaring fire produced less than 2inches of tepid water; the beds were worse than uncomfortable…and the list goes on.

Christmas Eve we felt very down, I had a new sympathy for how Mary must’ve felt when there was nowhere to stay other than a stable.

We set about making the place as confortable as possible. DH found a worker with a mower who tamed the weeds in front of the cottage; DDs and I did some essential cleaning; the worker cut a small branch off a pine tree for us and we made decorations from the paper hats in the box of crackers I had; a star was made from the box and covered in tin foil.

Christmas morning I was shocked to find the biggest tarantulla I have ever seen on the floor next to me in the bathroom. (I jumped onto it…thought about it squishing all over the place…and quickly jumped off it again - DH dealt with the mess )

For lunch my DH made a tasty barbecue; DDs and I made salads and an apple pie which we somehow cooked on the top of the cooker, I can’t remember how; we set a “festive” table and we sat chatting about what a horrid Christmas experience this was (“The worst Christmas ever”). Somewhere during the meal, in an attempt to lighten the depressing atmosphere that was creeping in, I said, “It’s not that bad. We are all together. We still have each other. It’s not as bad as it was for Mary and Joseph.”

How prophetic my words turned out to be. The following Christmas turned out to be our worst Christmas ever - exactly a month before my husband had been killed. That “bad” Christmas had been our last Christmas together.

We still look back with fond memories to Christmas '93 as being a very special Christmas, changing the bad to good was an experience in growth, and we can be sure we remember our last Christmas together very clearly. I still have the star, with the story of how it was made stuck on the back - it is part of the family Christmas tradition now.

 

[VivienneJ]

One of our best memories is meeting the real Santa Claus–??!

…

We came back to the mall two weeks later for some more shopping, and my daughter wanted to see Santa again. When she got up to his lap, he greeted her by name, and remembered what she had asked for.

I was amazed. He must have seen thousands of children since meeting my daughter two weeks earlier. But he remembered her, her name, and her Christmas list.

In my heart of hearts, I’m guessing that perhaps he was a man with a photographic memory. But I can’t help but wonder… was he the real Santa, spending a little time in the South?

I actually looked for his reindeer and sleigh after we left the mall.

What a beautiful story and a most amazing man “on duty” that year.

 

[CB_Catholic]

One of our best memories is meeting the real Santa Claus–??!

We met him at a mall in Raleigh, North Carolina. My daughter was about 5, and she waited to meet him with all the other kids. He was an elderly man with white hair and a long white beard–all real. He was chubby, but not corpulent.

She told him her name–it’s an unusual name, Evangeline–but considering that lots of names were unusual, I didn’t think it was particularly memorable. My daughter was just a typical little blonde girl, like a thousand others. And I believe the list she gave Santa was nothing special–My Little Ponys, perhaps a Barbie. No wish for cancer cures or world peace or something that might have touched the man’s heart.

We came back to the mall two weeks later for some more shopping, and my daughter wanted to see Santa again. When she got up to his lap, he greeted her by name, and remembered what she had asked for.

I was amazed. He must have seen thousands of children since meeting my daughter two weeks earlier. But he remembered her, her name, and her Christmas list.

In my heart of hearts, I’m guessing that perhaps he was a man with a photographic memory. But I can’t help but wonder… was he the real Santa, spending a little time in the South?

I actually looked for his reindeer and sleigh after we left the mall.

Awww…how sweet!