What's your best/worst holiday memory?
Something wonderful you’ll never forget, or something horrible you wish you COULD forget…
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Yikes, that’s one expensive action figure!
The best was when our daughter & her family lived in Hawaii when our SIL was in the Army. They came home one Christmas & surprised us. What a great holiday THAT was.
When my cat died last year:(
When I was nine, the last gift that my Dad gave me (after all of the gifts were open) was a Black Lab puppy with a big red bow tied around her neck. We named her Molly. Two years later, cute, and now big Molly pulled the turkey off of the dining room table on Thanksgiving and had a feast.
Worst year, the first Christmas without my Mom.
@jmah, the second half of your “good” memory sounds like that scene from The Christmas Story when the Bumpkis’ dogs got in the house!
As for the “bad” memory, did you lose her to divorce or worse? I’ve been through both, with my Dad and yes, that is real hard during the holidays.
Last Christmas sucked. We went to my husband’s parents house for a week, his brother and his brother’s SO stayed there also all week, we shared one bathroom so that was annoying to negotiate. My husband caught a horrible flu and had a high fever and could not move out of bed for days. His sister was horrible to me, and his mother said something to me that sent me into tears (she was not deliberately mean at the time, but she triggered feelings in me from a history of having some bad feelings with her).
This Christmas my husband and I are going to Vegas.
Christmas in Vegas sounds real good!
Sorry for the bad memories. They are especially painful during the holidays, I know.
@stratman37 Luckily, I am not Christian (my husband’s family is Catholic) so I don’t have high expectations on Christmas, it would have sucked any time of year, the thing is we are only all in one place during the holidays, and that seems to be too much to deal with. So we will go to his parents in late January or February and get the visit in.
When I worked in the pastry biz in Paris, the holidays were awful. The French buy massive amounts of bûche de Noël cakes, and so we would spend the 4 weeks leading up to Christmas working 14 hour days, 7 days a week, making those damned logs. With no overtime pay or Christmas bonus, mind you.
I worked from 6 AM to 8 PM for all those weeks, so I actually didn’t see the sun that entire time. We got to leave at 2:00 in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. It was a sunny day, and the effect was so overwhelming that I burst into tears.
The day after Christmas, we launched into the equally non-stop production of Gallettes des Rois, the New Years specialty. That lasted another two weeks.
@stratman37 Mom passed away in May of 2007. Christmas was her favorite time of year, and December 25th of that year was a painful one.
As far as Molly, we finished our dinner and went and sat in the living room for coffee and pie. My Mom said that we’ll get to putting away the leftovers and tidying up a bit later. Well, about 10 minutes had past and someone walked into the kitchen to find Molly on the kitchen floor gnawing away at a turkey carcass. Most of the meat was gone, the carcass was covered in slobber and we had on our hands a very happy, tail wagging Black Lab.
Wait, Santa’s not REAL?!?
@stratman37 Yes, @rangerr ruined it for all of us jellies!
@erichw1504 that is hysterical that you linked that fluther question!! LMFAO!
The first Chirstmas without gormless Prince.
My best Christmas was the year my youngest sister was born. She was born on Christmas Eve and on Christmas morning my dad woke us all up to tell us we had a baby sister. It was incredibly cool and I still adore my little sister.
My worst Christmas was the year I turned 18. My dad threw my younger sisters in the car and drove them to his parent’s house in the midwest. He never even asked if I wanted to go, just left. I spent that Christmas by myself. I decided to put the tree up and right after I got it up and decorated it fell over. I spent the day cleaning up the broken lights and ornaments.
This Christmas will be the best because I learned the accordion since last year so now I can make Christmas songs that much more obnoxious!
Speaking of “finding out”, I remember coming out of the grocery store with my Dad the week before Christmas, and when he opened the trunk to put the groceries in, my eyes got as big as the proverbial saucers when I saw all these TOYS!
“Dad, look!!” “Get in the car!”, “but Dad…”, “JUST GET IN THE CAR!!”
Awkward, confusing, silent drive home…
Worst – Almost dying.
Best – First paycheck I was able to buy everyone a present all by myself.
@Harp I empathize. When I worked in retail we worked 6 days a week, typically 10–12 hour days of exhaustion for the 5 weeks before Christmas. By week 3 there were nights I cried before falling asleep, I figure it is similar to what babies must feel when they are overtired. Every morning I woke up feeling like I had been hit by a truck. After Christmas it is inventory time, which is tons of work, and then after that the Northern stores get a break, business slows down and we get comp days for the extra days worked during Christmas. But, I worked in Boca Raton, FL and “season” is busier than Christmas. So it was unending for months. Oh, and about 15 years ago retail started opening on New Years day, that really pissed me off!
When I did my foreign study in France, I flew home to Chicago on Christmas day. It was a really long day, but very good. I started the day with Midnight mass at Notre Dame, then slept for a few hours before I went to the airport. I got my bags checked with a minimum of fuss. The airport wasn’t crowded, the food on the flight was amazing (Bravo, Air France) and my folks, who I hadn’t seen in four months, came and picked me up, and then we went back to my grandparents and I got to see everyone.
By the way, I strongly recommend flying on Christmas Day. It’s soo much easier than the 24th.
Oddly, my best memory is the time we were just the four of us, and we celebrated “Jewish Christmas.” We went out and ate Chinese on Christmas Eve, I think. Maybe it was Christmas day. No fuss. No muss.
@daloon – “Fa Ra Ra Ra Ra, Ra Ra Ra Ra!”
Thanksgiving. 4 years ago.
3am
Colon ruptured for no apparent reason. Actually it probably did a day or so earlier.
Thought it was not a big deal not knowing what was wrong with me at the time.
It just got to the point that I needed to go to the hospital.
What I thought was going to be taken care of with a pill or a shot.
I was rushed into surgery having peritonitis. If I held off a few more days it would not have been a good thing.
Needed a resection, 8mm’s of Chaz the Maz was removed. 4 days later I was released. Few weeks of rest.
Happy to say me and my intestinal tract are like brand new. :-)
wow, I bet that took guts…
My 21st birthday – Dec. 31. a gang of us were skiing for the week. My young husband got me thermal long underwear and a frozen Sarah Lee chocolate cake with one candle in it.
sounds like hubby can’t count very well…
wait, your birthday is NEW YEARS EVE? How cool (or overshadowed) is that?
my worst was when i was really really poor so I went to the store to steal dinner ( i know) and I was really tired and not into it so I wasn’t careful and got caught, kicked out of the store. went home and one of the other squatters in our place told us someone ‘gave’ him a free turkey. so we cooked it and found out later, after we’d eaten it, that he’d fished it out the dumpster out back. haha we were like, what is it poisoned?
@stratman37: It is the worst day of the year to have a birthday; everyone is either exhausted or has whoop-de-do plans, which no longer interest me. I treat the other 364 as unbirthdays, which is fun.
@gailcalled – there ya go! It’s all about perspective, eh?
@stratman37 : Always these days. We just did my mother’s 95th. That was not fun either.
Worst – 5th grade. My dad was in the hospital after having a heart attack. Very sad, even though we knew by that time that he would be fine.
Best – Hard to say. Except the one above, they’ve all been good.
One christmas was both the best and worst for me. I had wanted a dirtbike for a long time. I finished opening up my presents out in the living room that were under the tree. I was there kind of sad, then my dad told me to go grab something out of his room for him, so I went and when I walked into the room there was the 100cc dirtbike, I screamed as loud as I could with joy. I was so happy, I couldn’t believe it. Then I went to ride it for the first time and my mom was so upset about it that she refused to watch me ride it for my first time ever.
Don’t tell me she said “you’ll put your eye out!”
@erichw1504 I SAID I WAS SORRY!!!
Best Christmas was when I got my first pony when I was 3.
Worst Christmas was last year when both that pony and my great grandmother died two days apart, a month before Christmas.
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