What was the best Christmas you can remember?

[True Dough]

Someone posted this elsewhere as the best Christmas ever, from 1981:

[lapfog_1]

1. yup

those days of 5% sales tax were pretty wonderful.

[True Dough]

2. And they paid by check!

Practically everybody taps or swipes a card today.

[murielm99]

3. I was seven.

It was the first year in a house for my family, not a mobile home. The presents were modest but good for me and my little brother. We had what we wanted. I did not believe in Santa any more, but that was okay. I understood why we had a Santa. For some reason, that Christmas stands out as one of the best of my childhood. My mother had a way of ruining things for our family, but my dad seemed to be in charge of things that year.

[True Dough]

4. Can you tell us which presents you recall, Muriel?

For me, it was always the video game systems. I didn't ever own Atari, like in the OP, but I got Colecovision one year with some games and several years later, it was Sega.

My folks couldn't really afford that sort of thing, but somehow they made it happen. The sacrifices! I could never appreciate them until adulthood.

[murielm99]

9. I had books and puzzles.

I read the books to my brother. I don't recall titles. I had some girlie type presents, too, like a little ironing board and a washing machine. We had good Christmas candy that year, too. My dad knew what kind of candy to buy. My dad did the shopping and he was the one who knew how to throw a good Christmas. We were a churchgoing family. Of course we went to church on Christmas eve, and each got one of those great brown paper bags of candy. Those bags always had an orange, a candy cane, some nuts that needed to be cracked, like walnuts, and the most delicious chocolate cream candies in the world. I think those must have been Missouri Synod Lutheran chocolate candies. When we spent Christas in Minnesota with grandma, which happened every few years, we got the same brown paper bag filled with the same treats, including the chocolate candies with the white filling.

I was a fifties kid. We had very primitive television. No video games yet.

[Polybius]

5. Amazing

I got my Atari 2600 a few years later, but I sure as heck wanted one then. My mom was old-fashioned, and at time listened to Silent Gen rumors that it could break the TV.

I did, however, get lots of toys and handheld video games. Remember those?

[LuckyCharms]

6. Mine had nothing to do with gifts...

It's not that I "dislike" receiving gifts...it's just that I would rather give them than receive them. I do not know why I am like this.

So my best Christmases have to do with people.

A house full of 20 to 30 people. Inviting people over that you are only acquaintances with, because I knew they would otherwise be alone at Christmas.

Alcohol being served, but nobody got drunk or obnoxious.

Delicious pastries. Fresh brewed coffee. Amazing food both cooked at home and brought by guests.

I would write stupid Christmas song lyrics that were pretty funny, and stand in the center of the room and sing them to the guests.

Full-on Christmas decorations. Good conversation. Laughter.

People die over the years, and the parties get smaller and smaller, until eventually, they don't really exist anymore.

So now, I give gifts to new people that have joined my life along the way. If I know someone is lonely or having a hard time at Christmas, I contact them and tell them I am thinking about them. If I know someone needs something fixed, i make a special effort to go and fix it for them.

This is how I cope with the holiday blues instead of dwelling on who is gone...I try to make new memories. New and different memories.

[Niagara]

7. K-Mart sucks!

We didn't have an Atari but we did have a Commodore 64. I believe it was purchased from Target.


I worked at K-Mart from February to August/September of 1994. It was a terrible job and they played favorites with their employees. Also, they paid in cash.

One would think this would be fantastic until one time I was $100 short in my paycheck. What an employee would do is go to the window of the payroll person on payday. They would hand the employees a sealed envelope. I thought my envelope for that week was very thin. I opened the envelope and my cash didn't match my paycheck stub. I refused to initial the paperwork.


The payroll person says, "The payroll came out correctly."


I said, "I'm not sure how that happened when I'm $100 short in my envelope."


I worked later that day and was called into the office. I was young. A few higher ups asked me if there was money sticking together in my envelope.

I explained that for the amount of hours that I worked (summer time) that my envelope was thin. I opened the envelope up and there was $100 dollars missing and the amount didn't match my paycheck stub. There wasn't any money was stuck together. Money stuck together doesn't make the envelope thin anyways."

I didn't quit right away, it was a few months down the road when I put my 2 weeks notice in. I had enough of K-Marts bull crap. For all I know the lady in charge of the payroll could have placed that $100 in her envelope when she counted the money.

[True Dough]

8. What a terrible system

So unaccountable. It's a wonder K-Mart didn't go out of business! (I know, they did.)

You never did get that $100, Niagara?

[Niagara]

10. It was a terrible system, True

Don't get me wrong, I did like shopping at K-Mart before, during and after my employment there.


I had to do what they call "re-wraps". I wasn't any good at it either. I always damaged the product that needed to be re wrapped with the heat gun.
Who gives an inexperienced teenager a heat gun anyways? lol


Thankfully, I did get that $100 when I picked up my paycheck envelope. I gave it back to the lady in charge of payroll so she could count it and match the numbers. I also didn't sign the payroll record notebook until I was reimbursed. The entire situation was weird and I got bad vibes.

[yellowdogintexas]

11. I think it has to be our first Christmas with our daughter.

She is now 41 and has her own daughter.
We started a tradition that first year of ornaments with her picture, which we continued as until she was 18.
She has continued that tradition with her daughter.

Children just make Christmas

[True Dough]

12. "Children just make Christmas"

They do indeed. Their excitement level is infectious.