Yes for sure. DH was waxing nostalgic last night for all the Christmas Eves his family spent together in the old house that was here, the food, the gifts under the tree, all his cousins...

And I too have been thinking of all the work and effort my parents went through, staying up til the wee hours to get our gifts assembled and wrapped, getting to bed so late only to have my brother and I wake up early to attack the presents. I still remember one morning I got up to get to the presents and my brother (he was older than I) made me get back in bed as it was ridiculously early and we had to wait for Mom & Dad. I remember he used to set up his lionel trains in a loop around the base of the tree. When Dad first bought the property, he planted a whole bunch of spruce trees up in the back. Every year we'd go up and select a tree, cut it and bring it into the house. We have photos from every year when we were kids up to when my nephew was a little boy. And I remember that the time before Christmas was a somber one, not like today. We never brought our tree in or decorated it until just before Christmas, sometimes on Christmas Eve Day.

So many fond memories. While I miss so many of the people involved, it's only because they meant so much to me. The greater the love, the harder the loss...

And yes, I do remember those moments of unbridled joy that seem to elude me these days. I think as we age and experience full catastrophe living, we get too much scar tissue. But I am happy for those memories.

Being the sole provider for a family of 6 children, my father would go on Christmas Eve to buy a Christmas tree. They were very discounted at that point, but always squirrely, mis-shapened and decorated haphazardly by two people who had to make things happen in a short period of time. Santa brought the tree overnight - so Christmas morning was even more magical for us.

I was just noting I think this is the first year I did not go to bed with that 'anticipating Christmas' feeling. For moms Christmas is A LOT of work!! All that gathering/eating/decorating/gifting, just doesn't happen without us. It's good to know even though I finally 'grew up' from those anticipatory anxious emotions I can give back to my family the Christmas my parents gave us as kids. We didn't have extended family so much being sooo far from everyone given my dad's latest military station but we still had all the rest. My three offspring and spouse are here. I am blessed they put the effort to gather as an entire family. That's the circle of life. Not what we got but what we pass on. What we give back. The storm almost beat us. #2DD spent one night sheltered in a church, her car encased in a snow drift but she made it!! Let Christmas begin!!

I was just talking to DH about this and neither of us can remember our parents ever telling us about their christmases as children, nor did our grandparents. We have no idea if they got a tree, presents or anything else. I sort of assume that the traditions they created for us were the same as theirs, but not necessarily. So be sure to share your Christmas memories with your children and their children so the memories can carry on.

Annie - I am waiting for an hour or so to call my 91-year-old mother in Ohio and I will be sure to ask her about her Christmas memories. I recall her telling me about gifts in her stocking when she was young in rural Indiana. Always had an orange in it and candy. Her mother made the most delectable peanut butter fudge for the holidays - I still remember it.

I remember when we were teens, my Mom would have a tree trimming party for me and my GFs...and my GFs and I would get together to bake batches and batches of cookies.

You're right, the joy of the season was more than opening presents. It was the whole atmosphere of anticipation. Houses and town streets dressed up with lights and decorations, businesses playing holiday music, adults playing Santa to bring happiness to kids, parades, school vacation! Holiday cards and sometimes even packages from distant relatives.

My memories are similar to others. Cookie baking, visiting relatives, decorations. My dad loved to decorate the house and would win a poinsettia from the civic association every year for the best decorated house. He also took home movies of every Christmas morning, so i have movies of me and my two siblings running down the stairs and opening gifts.

Another great memory is going shopping with my dad for gifts for my mom. she would give us a list and off we went. One time she asked for a slip. This was back in the day when the saleswoman took things out of the case to show you. This time she was kind of dismissive of me because I was a kid, so I bought the nicest most expensive slip she showed me. I guess i showed her!

So many wonderful memories of Christmas. I hope I created them for my sons, too.

I have no idea what Christmas was like for my father as a child. His mother was rather rigid, but kind. My mom was poor but her mother made Christmas special for all seven kids. They always got the traditional orange and presents.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Both my Dad and Mom grew up very poor. I remember my Dad telling me once that he'd unwrap his gift and find out it was something he had gotten last year - the same item, not a new one. His mother just wanted he and his siblings to have a something to unwrap on Christmas morning. It made me cry and still does now when I think of it.

I don't know how my parents afforded the few gifts for us. We always had a tree but I don't remember how we got it. We were never disappointed, grateful for what we received even if it was something small.

Like most that have commented my parents did not say anything about their Christmas's. Since gift giving was seldom more than one or two gifts with perhaps some candy and fruit in the stocking that was probably what they received. The only mention my mom made was the tradition of visiting on Christmas Day. She mentioned one time that the card tray was overflowing by the time her family arrived at one of the grandparents. I do not know if that was when she took some of the calling cards I found when I was going through stuff. She kept no men's cards but the ladies were elaborate often with the folded corner. Different era and was rapidly drawing to a quick end as she was born in 1924. Dad spent much of his childhood in a childrens hospital after breaking his leg when he was 8 and a bone infection set in. Probably received the one gift that was given to all the children in the hospital.

My mother's father had always made Christmas extra special for us so I assume my mother had the same. I dont think my father did. I remember our first ever Christmas not at Grannie and Papa's. We were in New York. We had very little money and some of our gifts were from collecting box tops from cereal. My mother was all down in the mouth about it but not us. I woke early and woke all my sibs and we went down stairs to oggle our stashes of stuff. I remember paddle balls and jacks-cheap stuff of course but super cool to a five year old. We were having a grand time when my mom came to the top of the stairs to yell "it is 2:30 in the morning ! Go back to bed!" The year before we had gotten miniature furniture, expensive dolls and tricycles, BB guns for the boys and such. I didnt see the difference. My older sibs and I have all been really into Christmas to the point of my brother and I buying the Christmas tree so my mom couldn't make us take in down Christmas afternoon. Our tree.

"it is 2:30 in the morning ! Go back to bed!"

ha ha. Reminds me of my younger brother and I. We shared a room and it was a short distance down the hall from my parents'. In order to get to the livingroom we had to sneak past their bedroom door. We would get up at 5am or so and tip toe, trying not to make the floor squeak. They always heard us. Dad or Mom would call out and we had to scamper back to our room giggling the whole way.

We spent every Christmas at my grandparents. They had a one-bedroom apartment, and almost all seven of their children plus spouses plus grandchildren were there. There were tables everywhere. I was at the kid's table with my brother and my next two oldest boy cousins. Joey got "the call" to sit with the grownups when Debbie got to be old enough to sit with us. I have never truly forgiven him. Grandma did all the cooking and after dinner, snoozed in a chair. Each of us had a job. My mom washed dishes; Aunt Laura dried. Cousin Lucille stood on a chair and scrubbed the stove. I had vacuum duty. My cousins and I still talk about it when we get together. Precious memories that have lasted so long.

This is certainly the time of the year to reminisce, isn't it? My mom was born at the beginning of the Great Depression, and like others here, I never heard about the things she would do or get, but I do know they always went to mass on Christmas eve, and Grandma stayed behind, and when they returned home, the tree would be up and decorated.

My dad was Jewish, so he had zero stories of childhood Christmases. He loved to celebrate it with us tho, and even played Santa when we were very small, going about outside ringing sleighbells and peeking in the windows with a Santa mask, to our delight.

We always lit a small menorah as well.

I had really great Christmasses growing up. My parents are devout Catholics, so of course that played heavily into it. Advent wreaths and such. However, for holidays anyway, I feel that there was a healthy balance of religious and secular fun, both at home and in the Catholic school we attended. And yes, the season leading up to the big day was the best part. Cookies, gingerbread houses, decorating, all of that. Now, as an adult I still love the season. The day itself, well, I always got sad on Christmas Day, because now its all over, back to normal blah everyday life. I am still the same now, even though the magic is all on ME to create now for myself, I still get really excited for it and get really really sad when its over. I am in my office now, knowing that I need to take my Christmas decor down, and dreading it because of the sadness that washes over me when I do. I guess I need to rip the band aid off and get to it. The holiday seasons ( Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas) seems so much shorter than it used to be. I do not get my fill of them before they are over. :( However, I am grateful to my parents for setting that standard by making holidays so great growing up.

Here's another one who enjoyed sitting in the dark looking at the lighted Christmas tree. It made me feel so peaceful. I still like to to do that in the years when we put up a tree.

When I was a kid, the lights were blurred into overlapping, beautiful, soft pools of light. The experience was changed once I got glasses and could see the lights more individually.

For reminiscing, if you haven't listened to A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas, it is absolutely wonderful.

I've been deluged with memories of Christmas past this month, and I can see why. I spent most of Christmas and all of the several previous days alone, feeling crappy with shingles. Such a sharp contrast to the Christmases of my childhood, my teen years, and the years when my kids were growing up.

When I was growing up my dad always came home with a real tree. He looked for nice, full ones. From my current perspective--old farmhouse out in the country--I don't know how he even got the trees into our 3rd-floor city apartment. But all our other friends in the building did the same. Some of my childhood Christmas memories took place at their houses (we always called our apartments houses)--the smell of smoke from Howie's Lionel trains going around his tree . . . hearing "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" for the first time at Carolyn's house . . . the fascinating bubbling lights on her tree.

One memory in particular stood out for me on Christmas Eve. I was 16 years old, dressed for a party that Christmas Eve. My anticipation was high; I knew I'd have a wonderful time. I turned out all the ambient lights and sat down to wait for my boyfriend, Alan, to arrive and take me to the party. I looked in wonder at the tree, fully aware of the magic of the moment.

This year, Alan died the day before Christmas Eve. He had Alzheimer's, so it wasn't unexpected, wasn't a tragedy. But it felt like a sad milestone had been marked. I told his daughter I had sweet memories of celebrating Christmas with her dad when we were young.

Alisande - I hope you a recovering well from shingles. I spent a Christmas alone one year - my DH (then my boyfriend) drove to New England to see his family and I lived a few hours away from him doing a clinical fellowship year near Cincinnati. I didn't mind, because I knew I'd see him on New Years.

We got news of the death of a longtime dear friend in August. He died from a sudden heart attack. He was my husband's closest friend and we had known him since 1976. Just a few minutes ago I was on Facebook, and a little message popped up saying that today was his birthday and to send him good wishes. I could hardly breathe when I read that.

We had an aluminum Christmas tree around 1960, like this

, and it had a color wheel that I loved.

Before that, my father would go somewhere to chop down a cedar tree (because it was cheaper), but everyone in the family was allergic to cedar except for him, and he was the only one who could go into the room where the tree was and stay there for more than a few minutes. Then around 1959, he bought a tree that was painted pink (good for Amylou), and then my mother bought all blue balls and decorations for it. I liked that one also, and no one was allergic to pink paint.

After the aluminum tree was retired 😞, my mother bought an artificial tree that she could reuse each year, and no one was allergic to it.

My father seemed to like Christmas, but he did not like buying presents, and so he would take me with him to pick out a present for Mother - after one year giving her a vacuum cleaner, which made her mad. She said to him, "You just gave me this because you want me to clean up after you!"

My paternal grandmother converted to Jehovah's Witness late in life (because her only daughter had been converted by her husband), and she did not celebrate Christmas after that, as she considered it a pagan holiday. My maternal grandmother was from Germany, and she celebrated Christmas big time, and we often went to her house to celebrate - until my sister graduated from high school and moved out. She would sing "Stille Nacht" to me, even though she did not have a good singing voice, and that was some of the earliest German that I learned. If she talked about her childhood Christmases (and she probably did), I don't remember what she said. Mother was an only child, both her parents worked, and so she probably had lavish Christmases as a child, but she did not talk about them either.

My father's parents were both eccentric, and so there's no telling what they did at Christmas, but they were not poor during the depression and always had servants. My mother's family only had a part-time maid.

When I was 13, my father gave me a 22 rifle for Christmas, and I had no idea what to do with it. I think I shot a few tin cans with it, and I only went rabbit hunting once. After I accidentally killed a rabbit on that excursion, I hung the rifle up on one of the several gun racks in the house, as I considered it too dangerous. I also thought that a gun was a very inappropriate gift for Christmas, but then my father's whole family was a bit strange. One winter, my father took me with him (and my maternal grandfather) to his hunting lodge, which was in a very nice and attractive spot in the Texas Hill Country, but I found out that the main reason he took me was so that I could cook breakfast for them, and I had to do it on a wood stove. We stayed in a very rustic cabin and I think had leaky walls, but they kept a fire going to keep us warm.

We had the same tree and color wheel! My cousin had a seasonal job at Sears, and he was in the Holiday Decorating area. Everybody in the family bought a tree that year. I was in an antique store last year around Christmastime, and those trees are going for quite a sum.

My childhood Christmases were nice. There was nothing in the house except a wreath on the door when I went to bed Xmas Eve. When I awoke there was a gigantic decorated live tree with lights and a farm scene under the tree with fake snow and a mirror as a pond and little houses and barns. And of course presents for me, an only child. I was led blindfolded to the kitchen and made to eat breakfast first and then I was released. How they put the tree up, decorated it wrapped all the gifts in a few hours is amazing in retrospect. I was bummed when I outgrew childhood and got clothes and practical items. I loved reliving the same thing years later with my kids except we chopped down the tree every year.

Now it's kinda bittersweet because we don't do gifts anymore and I don't have a real tree because we spend Xmas day with my daughter and she has a two-story Fraser fir. I used to send at least 60 cards out each with a note and later a family-printed letter. This year I sent five cards. I still decorate the outside doors and the interior of the downstairs.

I have not read the comments, I have just a minute, but wanted to say my grandmother, born in 1922 told the most wonderful stories about how the tree did not go up until Christams Eve. She would go to bed and wake up to the house transformed. We are Italian and that was the tradition. I am pretty sure it was the same for my German step father. In neither case were costs an issue. It sounded like pure magicc for a child to wake up to that sight. Many churches do not have any Christmas carols until Christmas Day itself. Advent used to be more than a chocolate calendar.