Christmas Memories

As long as we're talking about memories of Christmas, I'll share a few. I concur with everything Becky said, I loved all those things too. I remember having to get our rooms and the whole house clean on Christmas Eve so we would have a clean place to put our new stuff on Christmas day. After opening our gifts we would put on a new outfit we got and go lay out all our gifts on our bed for any visitors that might stop by to be able to see what we got. The house seemed to stay clean that way too. (why does that seem to be an important detail I remember? maybe because my house always seems trashed and it takes me weeks to catch up?) The Von Hancocks would sometimes come over and we'd play the new games we always got --each of us three kids always opened a new game each. Darvil would be the first to read the directions for his game. By the time we played each of the three games, had the delicious Christmas dinner Mom always made (Grandma Hancock always came and ate dinner with us), and just played with our new things, the day was over. Always a little sadness at the end of the day that it was over and we'd have to wait a whole year for it to come again. Mom and Dad always made our Christmases very special. I don't remember Mom ever seeming stressed either. The abundant delicious goodies were always done early enough that we could nibble on them for a long time during the season. Gifts were wrapped early and under the tree. We always had Christmas music playing on our record player. When the record ended, we'd fight over whose turn it was to start another album. The gifts were never extravagant, but always well thought-out and just perfect. The homemade dolls were wonderful - I still have all mine! I hope my kids have special memories of traditions and good feelings about Christmas. They won't be mine, but that's ok, as long as they have some!