Really off topic

One of my favorite memories of Christmas is of my parents loading us up in the car. We would spend Christmas Eve traveling from house to house (relatives and friends) to simply spend time with those who were important to us. Upon returning late at night we would gather around the tree and each was given one package to open before going off to bed. I would stay awake all night listening for reindeer hooves.

Christmas dinner was and continues to be a wonderful memory. Mom and Dad order a nice cut of meat (prime rib) and the house is filled with wonderful smells. Dinner comes and we all gather around the table to share the meal and time with each other. The meal is the same each year: prime rib, mash potatoes, breaded green beans, rolls, Aunt Elsie's green jello, spiced apples, gravy and chocolate pudding pies for dessert.

Finally, for years and years my mom and I would spend an entire day making hard crack candy to give away as gifts. The house would smell wonderful and the time with my mom was priceless. The clean-up was awful and with each passing year we found ourselves making more and more candy. A couple of years ago we called it quits just too much work but the memories are still there.

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You'll Shoot Your Eye Out!!!!!!!!!

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OK, that brings up a favorite Christmas memory. I was, oh, 5 or 6-ish, and got a BB gun for Christmas. It was far too cold to go out and try it out - we open presents on Christmas Eve, and the Ranch House is at 8,000 ft in the Colorado Rockies - so Grandpa Boots turned the living room into a shooting range for me.

We got a box, filled it with old magazines and newspapers, set it up by the little fireplace, warned the dogs and people out of the way, and I learned how to shoot then and there.

Yeah, that's love, redneck style.

When I was about 5 I think, my mother and I were I think doing some Christmas window shopping in New York city, where we lived. It was late afternoon, and it started snowing heavily. We were near Central Park, and she decided we should cut through the park in the snow because it was so pretty. Well it got dark quickly, and the snow was suddenly coming down like a blizzard. No one was in the park and there were only occasional lamps and the paths were being covered by heavy snow. We became lost and could not find our way out of the park! Central Park is BIG. We were getting very cold and making many false turns, our footsteps getting covered almost as soon as we made them. There was no noise and no people anywhere. I was scared and I sensed my Mommy was scared too. I thought we were going to die there in the frozen snow and our bodies found the next day.
We kept circling round and round looking for a way out of the park, but the snow was blowing deeper and deeper and we were freezing with numb hands and feet.
Suddenly, like a miracle, we made another turn and found an exit to the street! I never felt so happy and relieved! As fate would have it, directly across from the park exit was a tiny German restaurant in the German neighborhood of Yorkville ('The Ideal Restaurant', I think I recall it was?) Mommy got all excited and told me how lucky we were to be there, but you couldn't see inside because the big plate glass windows were dripping with foggy steam...a very good sign, good enough for me! We went in and the bell on the door jungled and there was the counter all lined with German people in big winter coats eating happily, and the whole place smelled like sausages and apples! We sat at the counter, rubbing ourselves to warm up, and had the most wonderful hot potato pancakes with apple sauce that I'll ever eat in my life. For years afterwards, Mommy and I would sometimes say to each other when it snowed- "Remember the time we got lost in the snowstorm in Central Park and almost died?"

Christmas for me is not a bunch of good memories, but you guys have encouraged me to think of my good ones.

The smell of my grandmother's house when we walked in the door. A big giant pot of tomato sauce (or gravy, depending on what you want to call it) simmering on the stove, my grandmother's ravioli board (i still have it) covered with dough, and me helping her make the ravioli!
my other grandparents' house filled with similiar smells and all sorts of sweet goodies waiting to be sampled. And Italians used to not have christmas trees, they had a nativity scene instead. My grandfather used to get all the critters he could find like cowboys and indians, stuffed toys, silly stuff and add them to the nativity scene. I actually have some of his nearly 100 year old figurines now.

Not Christmas memories, but Lisa's and Mimi's reminded me:

I'm about 5, too, and living in the 'burbs outside Chicago. It's cold and snowy, but still my mom dresses me up warmly for shopping in Chicago. We take the bus in, and spend the whole day shopping. While we are standing at a rather deserted bus stop, waiting for the bus, my mom looks into my face and sees rosy red cheeks and glazed eyes. She sticks her hand under my hat and realizes I have a fever. We get home, and discover I am covered up in chicken pox! The next day both my brothers, who had been at school that day, get them, too.

My grandma's house in Chicago always smelt like the gas stove in the living room, and the zippered plastic covers on her couch. I remember spending the night there when I was little, and sleeping on that couch, which she had covered with a sheet. I was cold, so moved over to the floor in front of the stove in the night. She came through the living room for some reason (I thought she was in bed), and woke me and made me get back on the couch. I was too sleepy to talk but I needed another blanket if I was going to sleep on the couch. I remember later moving back to the floor after I couldn't take it anymore. I loved my Gramma's house. You could see the Ampitheater from her house.

Karen

My Oma's Christmas tree, with real candles in defiance of the D.C. fire code. :) If you've never seen a tree with real candles, you can't even believe how beautiful that was.

my grandmother had some kind of funky bubbling candles on her little tree. I have no idea what they were, but they were lighted transparent tubes of color.


http://www.allthingschristmas.com/pi...ble-lights.jpg

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Originally Posted by Biciclista

my grandmother had some kind of funky bubbling candles on her little tree. I have no idea what they were, but they were lighted transparent tubes of color.

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I love those! We have them on our tree (my family) every year. We call them bubble lights.

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Originally Posted by OakLeaf

My Oma's Christmas tree, with real candles in defiance of the D.C. fire code. :) If you've never seen a tree with real candles, you can't even believe how beautiful that was.

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Oma! I saw one once in Fredericksburg as a kiddo. We went to Fredericksburg last weekend, the Gluewillan, the brogue accents, I love Christmas in the Hill Country.

My husband has an Oma. There is something so magical about her saying grace in German, can't understand a word she is saying but it sounds lovely.