Dedemac

Jingle bell Rock!

kiffie2413

Loving all the stories and memories...
Wonderful ornaments and sneak peeks, too...
Have all of mine done...
ABSOLUTELY never Black Friday for me, NOOOOO!
Also never shop on Tax free weekend either. I'm sorry, but ANY money I might save shopping at either of those times would be lost when hubby had to bail me out of jail...and or pay for valium for me!!

Let's see..
Artificial tree, too many allergies for "real" one. Two trees, one in my part of our spread, one in Mom's part of our spread.
Used to open Christmas Eve and attend Midnight Service with hubby's family before my dmil passed.
Open Christmas Day with my parents before my dear dad passed. Now that our only son is married with a family, we "wing it"..as I know I must share him, ddil, dgd, dgs with her mom..dagnabbit!! Lol

Homemade and decorated Sugar cookies and homemade cinnamon rolls. My dmil used to make them for everyone, now it's passed to me. Can you say "Breadmaker machine"??? At least for the dough making, the rest I do by hand.

Stockings.. Absolutely! I've made one for everyone. And now I'm finishing one for my 10 month old grandson. I make the felt ones. Every time I make one I swear it's the last time. Then I "forget" and do it again..lol

I love any and every version of A Christmas Carol. Watch any I can find over and over. My fave is probably the version starring George C. Scott as Scrooge.

(Think I was skipped) I'll Be Home for Christmas.

Kif

PS fave Christmas tradition:
My dear dad started when I was a lil girl putting a pkg of wrapped chocolate donuts on tree for me.. continued every year up til the Christmas right before he died. I was 37.
The next Christmas was rough...1st without my dad. I got up Christmas morning to bake cinnamon rolls, glanced at tree, there was a wrapped pkg of the mini donuts...signed "Santa".
I cried..and thought it was from my hubby..
It turned out it was my SON. He was 17 at that time. He'd bought them, wrapped them, snuck them on tree with no one knowing. He's done it every year since, He's 29 now. Except now the donuts sometimes "magically" appear right after son and his family get here for Christmas...lol

ljdugas31

That made tears come to my eyes,What a beautiful thing your son did for you. I also make stockings for every new member of the family. I quilt and then cross sticth their name. I love doing it,stockings have been a must in our family since I was a little girl. Best part of Christmas was waiting for santa to come he would put our stockings at the foot of the bed. Now we know it was so my parents could sleep another half-hour before we opened our presents,at 5 am. . Just my husband and I we open our gifts Christmas day,then go to oldest son house with my 13 year old granddaughter. Christmas eve we spend with youngest son and wife. My daughter lives in Colorado with 5 grandchildren.Jan we go and spend new years with them. I put up 2 trees both fake and small. Love the holiday's,but so busy!

Patchesnposies

Kiffie, the donut story made me cry. What a special son. For a teenager to do that all on his own, for his mama. Boy, I am impressed. I'll bet he's an even more special man. You did a good job!

Quilty-Louise

Favorite Christmas memory for me was when I my daughter's grandpa (my 1st FIL)
would make spaghetti, chili, or something that could feed A LOT of people. Everyone
in the family came to my in-laws house to exchange gifts and have dinner. On Christmas
Day everyone would go to their other family functions.

My FIL LOVED very hot chili (green chili hot), so he would make 2 different batches
of chili one hot and one for the rest of us wimps. One year he got it so hot (put to many
hot chilis in) and just the smell had everyone gasping for breathe, even he couldn't eat it.

I always called him Papa Fish (last name was Fish), and I sure do miss that man, he has
been gone since 1991, not a day goes by that I don't think of him especially during the
holidays.

My daughter's dad was an only child, thus making my daughter their only grandchild.
She was 1 year old when her dad died, and her grandparents thought she hung the moon,
stars and the entire world. So every year my daughter and I have a special moment where
we sit and talk about her grandparents.

She is especially missing ALL her grandparents right now because they are not here to see
their great-grand child due to arrive in April 2015.

As for favorite Christmas songs, well I NOT a fan of MOST of the remakes. But some of my
all time favorites are Willie Nelson "Pretty Paper", Elvis Presley "Blue Christmas", Dolly Parton
"Hard Candy Christmas", and several others.


I have so many wonderful memories of different times of my life.

Cindy60545

Well, I'm just about done with my ornies. Here's a look!

Song: Feliz Navidad.
We always went to the tree farm & bought our tree. Then we'd go down to the beach & gather up sand to stabilize it in its bucket. Dad worked for the Post Office as a mailhandler, so from Thankgiving til Christmas we didn't see much of him. But he always made it home early Christmas Eve. We'd have snacks & be watching Christmas movies. I still do this with my family. Dinner is at lunch time & all evening is for snacking & movies. Favorite...It's a Wonderful Life.

PenniF

I don't think anyone could read these stories without tearing up.
Ok...i have 2 - My Gram gave every one of us grandkids socks every year for Christmas. The guys got a package of white tube socks (with the colored stripe at the top) and my girl cousin and i got knee socks....then my kids too - every year. We got other things -but ALWAYS the socks. The Christmas after she passed, i was at the mall and walked by the socks at JCP....and started to cry. No more socks under the tree. Couldn't stand it- I had to get socks....so every year for the past 10 years i've bought everyone one pair of socks.
My husband and i have a Christmas tradition we started more than 20 years ago - we didn't have much money at that time and hadn't bought anything for each other for Christmas - Christmas Eve was feeling kinda dreary...so about 2pm we split $100 and went to the mall. The rule was that no gift could cost more than $10.
We've done this every year since - Getting to the mall around 3.....staying til closing - and now we go to TGI Fridays and have a nice dinner afterward. I still have and use the key chain fob and the light up house he got me that first Christmas - and he still wears the goofy sweater i found for him (only at home). Some years the kids go along and help us - but either way it's a tradition that we really enjoy.

PenniF

REALLY pretty ornaments Cindy !!!!

G -- Good King Wemceslas

Patchesnposies

Cindy, you did a lovely job! Sweet and Christmasy, perfect!

roseirish48

last year everyone was broke or close to it. no spare money for real Xmas gifts--we even had to forego being Secret Santa to a welfare family like we had done for past years. so that Xmas wouldnt be a total disaster spiit wise--i bought a 420 gift certificate to Wal-Mart and then picked up 10=12 items from dollar store that would be useful to all ages and genders. My son Troy's girlfriend also bought 10 dollar items. the name of one gift was randomly selected, written on a slip of paper and sealed in envelope. After dinner, we all gathered in living room with the pile of wrapped dollar items on the coffee table. we passed around a pie tin and a set of dice. if you rolled doubles, you got to take a gift. once all gifts had been taken, we set a timer for a couple of minutes and kept playing, only this time getting a double meant you stole a gift from someone. when timer went off, you got to keep whatever gifts you managed to hang on to for duration of the stealing phase. at this time the gifts were then opened. Whoever had ended up with the pre-selected item,won the gift certificate. last year it was the 4 yr old daughter of my son Adam's girlfriend.