As we approach the final days of Christmas, Mandy and I would like to share with you some of our favorite childhood memories of Christmas. We hope that you will enjoy and be blessed by our memories. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
My First Childhood Memory of Christmas:
Mandy: I believe the first thing I remember about Christmas was sitting around the coffee table every night in December to read our Advent devotion. We had this cardboard nativity set that we would set up. Every night we added a new figure until, on Christmas morning, when we placed the Baby Jesus in the stable.
MICHELE: The first Christmas memory I have is of me looking at the Christmas ornaments on the tree and pointing to the golden ornament with my little pointer finger. I had to be at least two years old cause I was standing on my own two feet. 🙂
Favorite Family Christmas Traditions:
Mandy: Christmas has so many traditions for me. It’s hard to know where to start. Christmas began the day after Thanksgiving. We would pull out the Christmas records and stack them high in the Magnavox turntable and begin with making Christmas cookies hundreds of them, maybe thousands. My mother sent out, literally, hundreds of Christmas Cards with a letter inside each of them. We were all drafted to lick envelopes and stamps. (Thank goodness for self-adhesive stamps and envelopes coming into existence.) And then, I’m not sure if it was Christmas Eve or Night, but we would watch the movie “The Littlest Angel” and eat chocolate fondue! Yum! But my all-time favorite Christmas tradition was making cinnamon rolls and going caroling on Christmas Eve to all our friends and neighbors. You can read more about our family traditions on my memoirs blog, Raised in a Barn.
Michele: I am just going, to be honest, we really didn’t have any other than going to relatives for Christmas Eve and then Christmas Day and the usual gift opening. I just enjoyed having the tree up and then I would play with the nativity set under the tree!
Foods you enjoyed during the holiday:
Mandy: Pumpkin Pie, Pumpkin pie, and Pumpkin Pie! And a few cookies, too!
Michele: All the snacky stuff like fudge, Santa hats, almond bark, church windows… I am already having an acne breakout from just thinking about all the sugar… uffda
Favorite Christmas gift received:
Mandy: I’m thinking my favorite Christmas gift would have to be my Velvet Doll. Do you remember her? She had long blonde hair which you could shorten and lengthen by winding it up into her head. There was a Chrissy doll with red hair but I wanted Velvet. It ended up being anti-climatic though because the week before Christmas I happened to go in the closet where she was hiding. Not sure why I went there, but it was definitely NOT to snoop. Anyway, there she was hiding in the closet. It nearly ruined Christmas morning for me because I had to pretend to be surprised. Sad thing because I wanted that doll so dearly.
Anyway, one Christmas not long ago a Christmas package arrived from home. We set in under the tree for Christmas morning. When I opened it, there she was… My Velvet doll from childhood with all the clothing my mother had made extra for her. So in the end, I got my surprise. I’ll tell you this though, I have never wanted to sneak and find out what I was getting, it just really ruins Christmas for me. When my kids were younger, I would tease them about what they were getting me for Christmas but in my heart, I was so afraid they might tell me.
Michele: As a kid, it was my Holly Hobbie General Store Coloforms Fun set. IT WAS AWESOME. I wish I still had it… kinda like paper dolls. BUT my favorite gift as an adult was being able to adopt our daughter Gabrielle- that was SUPER SPECIAL.
Merry Christmas!,
Ecclesiastes 4:9 & 10 says Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.
That is why my we, Mandy and Michele, have decided to join together to hold each other up and at the same time, we hope that you are lifted up as well. We will share about chronic pain issues and raising children with ADHD, Things we’ve learned about leaving a legacy, and then some fun and laughter along the way as well.
We will be sharing about how God helps us through the worst of trials and the best of days. We hope that you will sign up for our newsletter.
