Christmas books!
I fondly remember a Golden Book of The Night Before Christmas. But I really remember scenes about Christmas that were in other books. Little Women, a couple of the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anne of Green Gables, All Creatures Great and Small, and several Ngaio Marsh mysteries were set around Christmas.
As far as living through a Christmas of the nostalgia-producing ilk, I go back to the late 1950s. Shiny metal trees (at someone else's house, my mother was an evergreen purist), the Christmas lights with the big bulbs, the childless neighbors who would dress up like Santa and Mrs. Claus and go from house to house on Christmas Eve ringing sleigh bells and delivering gifts (left on the front porch by our parents while we were putting on our pajamas.)

CeCe - We think along the same lines -- Little Women and the Little House books were the first that came to mind for me. Since I grew up in So. California, I never had a white Christmas. In fact, we spent many Christmas days playing outside in short sleeves. So the Christmases with snow and sleigh bells always seemed romantic to me.

My sister's family had a tradition of reading A Child's Christmas In Wales every year, which seemed like fun.

My favorite Christmas memories include carols on the stereo, stacks of Christmas cookies, wrapped gifts tumbling out from under the tree (a family of six kids!), and hours of board games. Heavenly.

My childhood Christmases in the 50ies were very traditional, much like in Astrid Lindgren's books. The preparations began on the 9th of December, St. Anne's Day. This was traditionally the day for testing the Christmas beer that should be ready that day. Later it became the day for soaking the lutefisk in time for Christmas. I remember the dried fish that looked like firewood before it was cured and soaked for 3 or 4 weeks. My mother would start baking not long after for Lucia Day on the 13th, saffron coffee bread, fruit cake and seven kinds of cookies, the prescribed number. She would make more bread closer to Christmas. My father would help making the ginger cookies that would take half the night. They used to finish around 2 o'clock and my father always made large cookies of his own design with the last of the dough for my brothers and me.

Most often we would buy a pre-salted 12 pound ham that my mother would cook and glaze. But when I was 14, my mother was in hospital before Christmas and father had bought a fresh ham from some farmer and I had to cure it in brine and cook it. This may have been my first experience of cooking. The ham is the most important dish on a Swedish Christmas table. It was eaten cold with homemade mustard, stewed red cabbage, apple sauce and stewed prunes. Other essential dishes were oxtongue, head cheese (store bought), pig's trotters in aspic, veal in aspic, liver sausage and liver paté. Lots of pickled beetroot and cucumber to go with all of it (home made, of course). But these were not the first course because we would begin with the pickled herring dishes, 3-4 varieties. After all the cold dishes came the hot dishes, meatballs, fat spicy Christmas sausages, spare ribs, a gratin of anchovies and potatoes in cream, and the lutefisk with its bechamel sauce, allspice and potatoes. Last there would be rice pudding, fruit and nuts. A little later the grown ups would have coffee with all the cookies.

My mother would be exhausted on Christmas Eve, the big day here (I forgot to mention the thorough cleaning of the house with clean curtains in all windows and the decorations) and I promised myself that I would never teach my own children to expect so much because my mother thought that we kids drove her to all these preparations. I don't think we did, children usually don't care so much about food.

I grew up in the 1950's and am from a family of ten children. My father worked afternoon shift at the large downtown post office in Seattle, Washington, which, during the Christmas season, required its employees to work overtime. This meant that Mom did all the shopping, cooking and decorating alone - not too unusual for the 1950's. What was unusual was that our family didn't own a car. That meant walking to a corner gas station or Christmas tree lot somehwere in our neighborhood, picking out a tree and dragging it several blocks to our house. Then Mom had to wrestle it in the door and try to set it in the Christmas tree stand so that it was fairly upright. (I can hardly imagine doing this alone, much less with several children underfoot!)
After the tree was decorated by us kids with lights and ornaments, Mom would put the tinsel on it. The tinsel was very narrow strands (1/16" by 18")of shiny silver material, numbering about 200 strands. Mom insisted on doing this herself - no help from us kids! She put each strand on individually, making the tinsel appear very balanced and uniformly even on the tree. At the end of the Christmas season, which for us was the Feast of the Epiphany, Jan 6th, Mom took the tinsel off the tree in the same manner as she put it on, saving as much as she could for next year's tree.
Another Chistmas decoration that was put out by the whole family was the nativity set. Does anyone rememeber a product known as 'angel hair'? Mom was very careful about using it because, she said, it contained finely spun glass, and could cut the person handling it. Angel hair was beautifully white with pink and blue highlights; it shined and shimmered, and was meant to look like a cloud. The creche was placed on this cloud-like substance,and all the rest of the characters of the nativity scene were put in place except the Christ child figurine. The youngest child who could safely handle the figurine was given the honor of putting baby Jesus in the manger on Christmas morning after we came home from early Mass. Then gifts were opened and there was absolute mayhem for about an hour.
Turkey was the featured food item at our dinner, which was served around noon on Christmas Day. Finally, eggnog made an appearance with the pumpkin pie and coffee; all the kids had a chance to taste a thimble full - and then we were off to enjoy our presents.
Eventually we would have to do the dishes - a constant source of bickering and arguing in our big family - but as we washed the dishes we would sing - sing anything from Christmas carols to Broadway musicals, rounds to non-sense songs, classical to rock and roll (there were a LOT of dishes to be washed at a holiday family meal- no automatic dishwashers in those days).
We would then set up and play any new game that had been a Christmas present, or play cards or Monopoly for the rest of the day.

My memories of Christmases past are of during WW2, when our household was my mother and her parents. They did wonders "keeping Christmas" for my sister and me. Pre-war decorations were carefully preserved. Nanny used a hairpin to make a bauble reusable when the original hanger broke! The Xmas cake and pudding, which were very short of dried fruit were darkened by having a bottle of Camp coffee essence added to the mixture.
When restrictions were lifted on 'showing lights', we saw a tree with fairy lights in a neighbour's front window. Granddad lifted us up to see over the hedge but we retreated when the neighbour came out. However, we were invited in so that we could see the wonderful tree up close and given a small hanging ornament from the real branches. I kept mine for many years and then gave it to my grand-daughter.
Books were hard to get then so I am afraid that I do not have any Xmas scene memories. Mine were real ones :->

Two books, both sent from the US by my Grandmother (she had got 'stuck' there during WWII and never settled back in England) were The Night Before Christmas and The Littlest Angel. I don't think they ever became as popular over here as they were in the US.
I suppose our Christmases were 'old fashioned' by modern standards, although we did receive presents and eat roast turkey, Xmas pud and mincepies and a tree was decorated, it was nothing like the lavish over-the-top scale that seems necessary today.
Also as Ann says, in Post War Britain food, 'goodies' etc were in very short supply.
Looking back it must have been far too much work for my poor mother who hated cooking and had NO help from my father who disliked Christmas and would never think of buying a present for anyone . . . though he was more than happy to eat the food and drink the booze. Consequently there was always an undercurrent easily picked up by us children and by lunchtime parental 'discussions' about the gravy being too thick etc would do little to ease the atmosphere.
I think the expectations outweighed the actual event . . .sorry to sound so Scooge-ish!

I had a large (10x15"?) Night Before Christmas book. It was on quality paper and had gorgeous illustrations. It lasted through me and my three younger siblings. I had it memorized by the time I was five, and my mother and I used to recite it to each other at bedtime.

This week, Borders had a package for $7.99 containing what it said was the anniversary edition of the book, a Christmas tin, and 20 Christmas cards. It was sealed, of course, but I bought it and am a little disappointed. When you turn the pages of the book, which is like an over-sized Little Golden book, every other double page has black and white illustrations rather than color. The tin is a nice size and will be useful, but the cards say "Happy Holidays." Bah, humbug! They do have a stanza from the poem on the lefthand side, but I won't be mailing my bookmarks in them!

I'm a depression-era baby, so our Christmas tree was a cedar cut from the farm. We got one gift each under the tree from Santa, as well as candy and fruit; and then on Christmas afternoon we went to my grandparents where there were lots of aunts and uncles who went the rounds of gifts for nieces and nephews and great food cooked by my grandmother who was a wonderful cook.

My mother's Christmas specialties were hot brown sugar syrup (similar to maple syrup) poured over a cut orange for flavor and served at breakfast with hot biscuits and butter; and she made jam cake with home-preserved blackberry jam and caramel icing. Either my sister or I still make one every year.

As Vee said, it wouldn't seem like much compared to present-day excess, but my memories are sweet and happy.

When we were small, my parents would wait until we were all asleep to put up the tree, telling us Santa brought it. I think they were relieved when my youngest sibling finally figured out Santa and they could stop hiding it and wrestling it in and struggling to get it into the stand, lit and decorated in whispers! We would get one "big" gift, books and a pile of little presents-my mother would have a great time in the 5 and 10 and the toy store. I remember getting boot ice skates one year-white leather ones! Olympics, here I come.

My mother always made a roast beef for Christmas. Always well-done, as my mother did not like pink meat. My husband's family did turkey. We usually spend Christmas Day with them, so I became one of the turkey-twice-in-a-month cookers. A few years ago my s-i-l's and I rebelled. We seemed to no sooner clean up Thanksgiving dinner than we were expected to do it all over again for Christmas. Now Christmas is a spiral ham with a couple favorite casserole sides-pineapple bread pudding, some sort of cheesy potatoes, and the favorite green bean casserole. Christmas cookies for dessert. They can all be done before-hand, and the ham is so much easier than a turkey. We eat, do gifts, take a walk, then pull out the leftovers for meal #2. So much more restful for the three of us who have spent the previous weeks making ourselves crazy shopping, baking, etc. If the guys want turkey, they are more than welcome to cook one.

Ghost Stories! In the evening of Christmas Eve. Not that we ever did such a thing, but it seems traditional to me. The very start of A Woman in Black has the hero's stepchildren telling ghost stories round the fire, and asking him to tell a story, which he refuses to do, but which inspires him to write down the story that had actually happened to him,

The BBC quite regularly do a program called A Ghost Story for Christmas. I remember years ago, settling down to watch it with my then girlfriend. Elaine Stritch was playing an American staying as a guest in a large house in London. They'd successfully set the scene, the owners of the house went out for the evening, the front door of the haunted house had just closed, leaving the American lady alone in it. It was still daylight, nothing was particularly spooky, but there was this air of menace around the place....I turned to my girlfriend and said "You know, Genesis in concert is on the telly on the other side", and we both gratefully wimped out and turned over, leaving poor Elaine to her fate!

Present-day Christmas celebrations in Sweden are nothing compared to the excesses of the old fashioned farmhouse style Christmas of 50 or 60 years ago as described in Astrid Lindgren's books. If you've seen the Bergman movie Fanny and Alexander you'll have a fair idea of what it looked like. It reminds me a lot of my childhood Christmas parties with large parts of my father's family of 11 siblings and their spouses and children, my 27 cousins. All were not there every year, or at the same time, of course. My husband's memories are similar but his extended family was smaller. His grandmother always made two kinds of sausage for Christmas and early in our marriage, 43 years ago, he would hint that it would be nice if we could make at least one kind. No way.

Children get more presents now but the traditional dishes are now served only in restaurants. People are too health conscious, so many young people are vegetarians or even vegans, and the rest think of their waistlines and their hearts. 50 years ago every Swede went to the early service, 6 or 7 o'clock on Christmas Day, believer and non-believer alike. Now people go to the Midnight mass if they go to church at all. Few do.

Two books I most associate with the Xmases of my youth are "Little Women" and a sad, 19th century tome: "The Bird's Christmas Carol." In the latter, Carol is a sick little girl, daughter of the Bird family. It is relieved only by the portrayal of the Ruggles', an Irish family next door, who are struggling to survive. It is now out of print. I have my own antiquarian copy and cannot read it withoug weeping.

I grew up in the suburbs of the "old" Atlanta, before all the changes. It was a friendly neighborhood, and we all knew each other. We used to walk the old sidewalks going from door to door for Xmas cheer, when neighbors would have "open house." At our own open house, my father made home-made egg nog --- incredibly strong, with sherry. I think a few were reeling, afterward....

Christmas eve feast were a few relatives and friends, with a large ham served. (never, ever turkey!). The ham was studded with cloves. Alongside it was the traditional southern dish of sweet potato pudding with orange flavor and marshmallows. Dessert was always the traditional southern fruitcake, made with Bourbon. Children would go door to door singing the old Xmas carols in the evening.

We always had a live fir tree in the bay window of our living room, decorated with very old glass balls and that dreadful silver tinsel draped over its branches. There was always a fire in our fireplace and it was the one night of the year that our dog was permitted to come into the house to lie in front of the fire.

On Xmas eve night, a plate of cookies was left out for Santa. I had been told to write a letter to Santa to state what I wanted. ( really, very simple gifts, by today's standards -- a bike, a doll, a book). I got little sleep that night, as I recall listening for the hooves of 8 reindeer on our slate roof. I would arise early and sneak downstairs to peek at the few gifts under the tree. Later on, the neighborhood kids would all congregate outside on the sidewalks to compare gifts. One of my most memorable gifts was a cowgirl outfit, a la Dale Evans, with boots, a lariat, a hat, etc. One of the boys got a Roy Rogers outfit, so we were quite the pair! We never went to church on Xmas, although there were Xmas concerts we attended, with choirs. Later in his life, my father took to listening to Handel's "Messiah."

My ideas of the IDEAL Christmas were probably best formed by reading the life of Tasha Tudor. She was a real back to basics soul and for some reason her simple approach really appealed to me. Home baked bread and cookies, fresh pine for the mantle,hand crafted pinecone wreaths, candles everywhere.....*sigh*

I grew up in the 50's and things were simpler then. There were no massive children's toy malls. My idea of what I might ask for from Santa usually came from a small catalog of toys from Sears. I remember one year I fell in love with a doll trunk which opened up and had small hangers, a drawer and room for dolly clothes and Dolly herself! I wanted that so much and carried that ad with me for a long time. I never did get it, must be I didn't show the ad to my Dad!! LOL.

Today I have a handmade balsam pillow in my living room which I crafted from balsam I picked in the Adirondacks. When I bury my face into it the fragrance of balsam immediately takes me back to when I was 6 years old, laying on my stomach under the lower boughs of our Christmas tree playing with the manger set.
That fragrance is more evocative than anything else I know.
Not only do I get the image but the emotions are there as well: happy, excited, magical moments.

VEER........don't feel sorry to feel you might be "scrooge-ish".
Probably , if truth be told, there are many whose expectations always exceed the reality...especially when there is some discord going on. I agree, children do pick up on these energies spoken or unspoken and they color memories.
I have tried so hard to create a memorable holiday tradition for my two. One treasures the effort, the other eschews it.
I have always had to do it myself and deal peripherally with a partner who goes into holiday/winter doldrums around Oct. 31 and doesn't emerge until May.
It makes doing holidays very solitary and burdensome in a way. I feel as though it is all on me. And it is.
My solution , through these many years, has been to do it from my own spiritual center, keeping in mind the joy that I feel in the doing.
I have learned that I cannot be all things to all people...but I can be my best for myself!
And so my holiday preparations are done with this thought:

Take Joy!

Well said, Yoyobon.