Fondest Holiday Memories: Part 1

It’s Christmas Eve, and all is merry and bright! We’re stopping by to wish you and your loved ones a very happy holiday. It’s such a fun time of year to spend with family and friends, celebrating the holidays together, and enjoying each other’s company.

We’d like to share some of our fondest holiday memories with you, and we’d love for you to share yours with us as well. You can upload photos and holiday layouts to our gallery in Club CK.

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Coming from a Danish family on my father’s side, we celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. As kids, we would get dressed up and head over to my Grandma’s house to eat a lovely dinner, look for the almond in rice pudding, sing carols, read the nativity story, and open presents. As a youngster, I got relegated to the kids’ table but as is a very Danish thing, we still got to have a lit candle at our table. Glædelig jul! -Kerri Miller

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Christmas has always been a special time for me, as I’m sure it is for a lot of people. I just love the feeling I get as I look at the lights. I drag my husband to go see Santa (and no we don’t have any kids), and I insist on going on a carriage ride (this year I cried I was so happy!). But I think my favorite memories are just being home with family and enjoying the warmth of being surrounded by love!

My family is a huge game gang, and that’s what the holidays is to me—everyone sitting around eating homemade sugar cookies and starbars while shouting at each other to “get out of the cookie jar cause it’s your turn on the game!”

But probably my most favorite memories are the night before Christmas and Christmas morning itself. On Christmas Eve my siblings and I sleep in the same room, on the floor (still do) and we listen to or watch “The Polar Express” over and over again. We draw Christmas pictures on each other’s backs and try to guess what they are. It’s perfect.

My favorite Christmas was when we all got Nerf guns and had a huge Nerf fight all Christmas day. Needless to say there were more than a few injuries and a ton of laughs. -Natalie McConnell

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The humor in my family can be down right corny. I almost hate to admit but it is true! An excellent example of this my middle brother David who is king of the “box joke” at Christmas. Not familiar with the “box joke”? Well it goes something like this…It is present opening time on Christmas morning. Everybody is taking turns opening their gifts one by one. David’s turn comes up and someone hands him a fancily wrapped square present and he proceeds to tear into the pretty wrapping paper. When he gets all the paper off the present (which everyone else assumes is probably going to be some boring shirt from J. Crew), he looks delightfully at the box, holds it up proudly, and says so thankfully, “A box! It’s what I’ve always wanted! Thank you so much!!”. Then he proceeds to set it down calmly and straight-faced of course and awaits his next present.

And this joke goes on for every gift that he opens. “Oh thank you for this white box! I love it! I’ve only gotten brown ones so far!”. “Oh yay! I was hoping to get a square-shaped box this year!” And on and on and on. Every year this happens. Every year. Well a few years ago my husband and I decided that we would try to pull one over on old Dave. We actually wrapped a small empty box up inside a nice big box. You know he was thinking he was about to get some sweet present inside that big box. But nope! It was just a box! Just what he had always wanted! We totally got him! I even made a layout after that Christmas to remember the event! Corny family humor makes for some fond (and funny!) holiday memories! -Gretchen McElveen

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We have some dear friends that we helped with their Christmas decorations for 20 plus years (yes I started when I was just a babe). One of our favorite things to set up was their nativity. It was a beautiful, white set from Avon. She had spent years collecting the pieces and they were her pride and joy. Each year we’d lovingly take out each piece and arrange it on a bed of angel hair and lights – it was gorgeous.

One year when we were exchanging gifts we were surprised and delighted to receive our own Avon nativity from them. It was our first nativity and a beautiful one at that. Time has passed and as happens age has changed this tradition. We no longer help them decorate for Christmas (the husband has passed on and the wife has some health issues so she doesn’t have her own place). But the memories of those times come alive as I admire our nativity and remember the hours we spent with them decorating, enjoying the Christmas spirit, and feeling of their love. - Stacy Croninger

Thanks so much for letting us share these stories with you. Come back tomorrow for more of our favorite holiday memories.

-Joannie