Your most memorable holiday story?

[Lachesis00]

I love these stories!

I will never for get 2008. I lost my Gram on Jan 8th, and my mom on December 18th. I live in Arizona, but I am so very lucky I was able to fly home to Alaska before each passed.

My Grandma we thought we were going to loose her and so I got an emergency flight home on January 26th. She hung on and got better until January 8th. I was able to spend every other evening, all night to hold her hand and just talk to her (even though she couldn't talk back). We were suppose to be on shifts (a pretty good size extended family).
Later, the nurses commented to someone, one of my Aunts about how they were so glad Irene had a granddaughter sitting with her. I was very attentive and refused to sleep. My aunt from... well, lets just say she is my least favorite aunt, thought it was my cousin. She argued with the nurse, saying it must have been my cousin. I have some very distinctive body features and she described them to my aunt.
I later found out NO one sat with my Gram every other night I wasn't. I am still kind of mad about it. However I am blessed my then 15 year old watched his baby brother (who was 7 months old) so I could sit with my Grandma every other night. It really is cherished time to me, and meant the world.

I got a call last year on December 17th saying my sister was following the ambulance to the ER with my mom. I asked her how serious it was. No one thought it was, she had been sick with what we thought was the flu.
I got an almost direct flight out on December 18th, just in case. Her progress was going up and down, no one could for sure give me any answers. I am so lucky I got home when I did. I got in around 1pm, they flew my mom to Seattle. She passed at midnght Seattle time.
While my mom was at home in the hospital, I whispered in her ear, I hoped I could be 1/2 the mom she was. My dad saw/heard me and started bawling. This is a man who is normally non-emotional in that way.

On a good note. My mom met both of my younger kids. We were able to spend July-end of November in Alaska. And I fulfilled my Grandma's wish of 17 years. Naming my daughter she never met, after my 2 great-grandmas.
She wanted me to name my oldest (who was a boy) the name if he was a girl. She'd remind me ever so often. She is my mom's only granddaughter.

Christmas and New Years will never be the same. This year is especially hard as it is the first of many with out my mom.

And a favorite memory... a year or so before my wedding. My Gram asked me what we'd like. For a whole year (on and off) she worked on a 20 recipe (I know, not a *lot*) cookbook of her recipes. I am the only one who has *her* recipes in her handwriting, and it means so much to me. OK I am not the only one. I scanned them in and sent them to my cousins. We were married December 31, 1994. I treasure that cookbook.

 

[wdwgirl03]

It's not really a story, more of a tradition we had when my cousins and I were little. Every Christmas Eve we'd get together at somebody's house for dinner, presents, etc. While we wait for Santa to come we'd always go into the basement and do a pinata. It was so much fun!

I guess one story I have was when we were done with the pinata we all ran upstairs to see what Santa had brought for us. Of course we went straight to the Christmas tree but there were no presents there! Turns out "Santa" put them in one of the other rooms. I have a ton of cousins so you should've seen the pile of stuff.

Now that we're older (my sister's the youngest out of all the kids and she's 19) we obviously don't have a pinata but we still get together on Christmas Eve. A couple years ago we were at one of my aunt's houses and we ended up playing Mad Gab and Outburst (I think that's what it's called...). Let's just say it got kind of intense! haha

 

[MinnieMe87]

My favorite memory from when I was a kid at Christmas..I was about 6 and all I had talked about that Christmas was wanting a water baby. Does anyone remember those? (It was a rubber baby doll that you filled with water so that it was heavy and felt like a real baby.) I wanted one sooo bad. I remember saying to my brother that I wouldn't care if I got nothing else I wanted one of those.
Christmas morning came and we went downstairs to check it out and there in the dining room was...A Barbie Volkswagen Power Wheel car! In the drivers seat, was my Water Baby. Best Christmas EVER. I drove the crap out of that thing (and damaged some of Mom's woodwork in the house hehe) and loved that Water Baby. My brother told me had a good "in" with Santa so I couldn't get him into trouble anymore.

My second favorite was from Christmas last year. We were having Christmas at my Grandma and Grandpa's like we always do, and my cousins were there with their two kids. Caydence who was almost 4 at the time was being quite the ham. She was running around with her brother and all of a sudden she stops in her tracks and starts picking her nose and says:
"I'm diggin' for gold!"
My Mom says "Eww stop doing that, it's gross!!" and Caydence says "But Aunt Cathy, I can't get all the boogies out if I don't pick them." My Mom says "Well, that's very true...but what do you do with them if you pick them out instead of blowing them into a tissue?" To which Caydence replies, with a very serious look on her face "Well. Usually I just eat them!"
I won't ever forget that!! Cracks me up everytime I think I about it.

 

[arminnie]

. During the Thanksgiving and Christmas season we pack food boxes for other people who find themselves in distressed circumstances. And we remember that one season when we were the ones who needed some help and we're grateful that someone reached out to us in the best way possible.

What a nice story. Sometimes we forget that not all of the "distressed circumstances" are financial.

I'd just moved back to the San Francisco area in 1989. I had to work on Black Friday (busiest day of the year for Visa) so I couldn't go home. I was all alone and had no plans.

A woman that I barely knew asked me in passing what I was doing for Thanksgiving. When I said I didn't have any plans she invited me to her home. Everyone (big extended family) was from Lebanon and the food was great. It was one of my best Thanksgivings. I was able to spend other holidays with them over the years and got to know this wonderful family quite well.

In the early 80s (before Prozac, Paxil, etc.) I was working in Dallas with a woman who had severe depression. She was not a close friend - just a work acquaintance. The treatment for depression back then was extremely limited. She had admitted that she was on the verge of being suicidal.

I took her home with me to Arkansas for Christmas to my parents' tiny little house. I just could not let her be alone for the holidays as I don't think she would have made it. It didn't cure her depression, but it got her over a rough time. She is someone who really blossomed after the better depression meds came on the market.