Christmas Day would be spent in the following ways. My favorite thing to do on Christmas Morning is to tell everyone, Merry Christmas! We open our stockings and then our gifts. While we open our gifts, our cat Shadow likes to chase and bite the balls of wrapping paper. Then we would spend the rest of the day visiting family or eating yummy food. Christmas Day dinner would be Ham and funeral potatoes or Turkey.
Christmas Eve would be spent with my paternal relatives. We would have lil’ smokies, deviled eggs, peanut butter blossoms, clam chip dip, chips and salsa and shrimp cream puffs. My aunt would play the piano while we sang songs and we did a white elephant gift exchange. We would have the party at Grandma and Grandpa’s house until there were too many of us. Then we had them at our house or aunts and uncles’ houses. One of our most memorable parties was up at my uncle’s cabin. To get up to the cabin from the parking lot, my uncle pulled us in a crate by his snowmobile. Before we go to bed, we usually read The Night Before Christmas, “One Solitary Life,” and Luke 2.
During Christmas, I am thankful for Jesus, my family, kindness, neighbors, and friends.
I love attending musical events during Christmas. I was in choir in Elementary and Junior High and we would have Christmas concerts during December. I love attending live performances of The Nutcracker and Scrooge: The Musical.
I love crafting at Christmastime. I made snow globes for my neighbors for Christmas one year, with plastic globes, an ornament, and fake snow inside. I made a wreath with pine cones I collected in Lake Tahoe and tied a maroon ribbon around it. I made ornaments out of the other pine cones and fake leaves, and sprayed them with glitter. I buy crafts from thrift stores and repaint them or put new lights on them if they are broken. I made some new wooden ears on a moose dressed like Santa, using wooden bat wings.
I love going to stores and smelling the cinnamon pine cones. Mom would light Cinnamon and Sugar Cookie candles on the fireplace mantel. I also loved the smell of gingerbread cookies baking.
I love travelling or going on trips during Christmastime. In 2000, we went to San Francisco between Christmas and New Year’s. In 2003, when my brother was on his mission, my parents and I went on a cruise on the Carnival Spirit out of Miami and got off the ship on Christmas Day. We have also gone on Christmas cruises 5 times since. The ships do a tree lighting, ugly sweater party, snow in the atrium, a giant gingerbread village, and a holiday stage show. In the Caribbean and Mexican ports, they play Christmas carols on steel drums when we walk down the docks or in the port shops. We also love going to California and the Disney parks during Christmastime as well. I loved seeing the Long Beach boat parade and the light around Balboa Island.
I loved to go see the lights of Layton Park, Ogden Park, Roy Park, and Temple Square. We would go visit Santa at Ogden Park and he would give us a candy cane. There was a house years ago on a hillside in Ogden that would decorate with lights for a whole block and we would drive up there to see the lights. We love driving past Santa's Enchanted Forest in Miami, Florida.
My favorite start to the season is the lights turning on, to brighten the darkness.
I remember going to several religious activities during Christmas. We go to Temple Square every year to see the lights. In our old ward, Mom and I were in the ward choir for a year. We went to a Christmas concert at the Ogden Tabernacle and sang a bunch of songs. Our wards would do a Christmas Dinner or Breakfast party, where we would donate socks. They would have the kids do a live nativity or have the choir sing hymns. I love going to church on Christmas to sing the hymns. I loved my calling of working in the Nursery in our old ward and singing Jingle Bells with the children, holding actual bells.
I try to remember Jesus during the holiday season by singing carols, putting up nativities, paintings, and statues of Jesus during Christmastime. In 2020, I painted 3 paintings of Jesus for the house: One with him walking on water, one of the nativities, and one of the first vision.
If I had to describe Christmas in one word, it would be love.
My brother got some practical jokes played on him during Christmas. My parents took his box of new roller skates and put some old ice skates in the box and wrapped. One year, they gave him all the ammo and accessories for a rifle, and then told him he would get the rifle the following year, before revealing the rifle was under the couch behind him.
My dad would try to put the focus on Christ every Christmastime. He was not a fan of the commercialism or the shopping crowds. We got him a sign for his office door that says “No Humbugs Allowed” and we got him a plush Grinch to put next to the Charlie Brown Tree in the basement bedroom. My Dad’s favorite joke is, “What did the snowman say to the other snowman? I smell carrots too.”
My favorite activity in school was making red and green paper chains in my classroom. I also remember making and painting ornaments to bring home to my mother.
My favorite book was Tale of the Three Trees and my favorite story was "Christmas Oranges.".
My favorite cartoon to watch on tv was How the Grinch Stole Christmas. My favorite quote from a movie is “Maybe Christmas (he thought) doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas perhaps means a little bit more.”
My favorite memories of snow were building snow caves in front of our old house and walking on top of giant snow piles, that had been plowed from the playground at the Elementary.
My favorite movies are The Bishop’s Wife, Christmas in Connecticut, Elf, While You were Sleeping, and White Christmas.
My favorite Nativity set is one my mother bought. It has everyone in the scene, as a teddy bear.
My favorite ornament is my bear with a pink nightshirt and cap, wearing ice skates.
My favorite reindeer is Prancer, because of the movie, Prancer and Prancer Returns.
My favorite songs are Breath of Heaven (Mary’s Song), God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Last Christmas, O Come All Ye Faithful, O Holy Night, and Silver Bells.
My favorite albums are the ones done by Michael Buble.
My favorite treat is Chex Mix with butter, corn syrup, almonds, and shredded coconut. My favorite cookie is Gingerbread. I also love fudge and pumpkin pie.
My favorite ugly sweater is my lime one with a big red bow in the front. I usually wear some plaid or Christmas theme pajama bottoms during Christmas.
My maternal grandmother had these beautiful red candle lights on her mantle, with halos of holly berries on the bottom. She was an excellent cook and baker. Her last Christmas was spent in the hospital, from December 14th to when she died on New Year’s Eve in 1994. Mom bought her a little Christmas tree with lights for her hospital room and we still have the tree. I put in my room on my end table during Christmas.
My paternal grandmother was a great cook and sewer. Her cookie jar would be full of chocolate chip cookies. She sewed us trees, a gingerbread house, and Santa’s sleigh with reindeer. She had a bell and angel collection. Their house was filled with many trinkets they had collected on their trips or Norma had sewn. Norma liked to needlepoint, paint ceramics, and crochet. She made hand sewn white angel ornaments to put on her tree. One Christmas, she made all of her granddaughters a fabric Barbie tent, made of purple fabric, which she had sewn curtains and windows on. She also made us fleece blankets with a pocket for our feet. Norma kept many scrapbooks with letters and pictures of her trips, children, and grandchildren.
My paternal grandfather spent 3 Christmas as a prisoner of War in Mukden, Manchuria during World War II. He was stationed in the Philippines, the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the Philippines and was in the Bataan Death March. He was sent on ship to Mukden, where he worked as a machinist while imprisoned. I remember him at Christmas as always passing out chocolates he got as presents, making sure he shared with everyone. He spent his last Christmas at the Peachtree center in the Alzheimer’s unit before he died in 2007.
My maternal grandfather died when I was 11, so I don't remember a lot of him during Christmastime. Just coming over to our house our us going to his house to visit.
My most memorable Christmas break from school was when I was a junior in high school. I had my wisdom teeth taken out and spent the whole break with mouth pain.
My Mom loves Christmas as much as I do. She would play the piano and sing Christmas carols every night during December. My mom had a blue Christmas village with a skating pond, church, bakery, and toy store, she would put in the nook in our dining room in Layton.
My oldest nephew was born in 2016. We went to California for his first Christmas. I bought him a snowman hat to wear on his first Christmas. I remember sitting playing a card game at the table, while Coen grabbed my arm and started chewing on it, while he was in his wheelie roller. I bought him a wooden police car, fire truck, and ambulance for Christmas. Mom got him a toy drum truck that he can put plastic rocks in the back. He kept wanting me to take the rocks and put them in the bed of the truck so he could dump them out. In 2018, I bought my nephew a Santa Ears headband. My niece and my nephew put both of their headbands on my dad’s head. They got these magnetic blocks for Christmas. They love to build towers and then knock them over.
My youngest nephew was born in 2018. We went to California for his first Christmas. I bought Milo a train for Christmas.
My niece was born in 2014. She came to Utah for her first Christmas. I bought her a little snow man hat, when she was just 10 months old. I bought her some animal wheel toys she could pull around Neve got to see the lights at Ogden Park and Temple Square for the first time. I had a telescope necklace and Neve loves me looking through it and saying, “Where is she?” She got to meet her paternal cousins for the time at our annual party. In 2016, I gave my niece some pennies to throw in a fountain at the mall during Christmas and told her to make wishes. I took a handful of cards and asked her to pick one. I held a random card up and asked, “Is this your card?” and she would say yes. For Christmas, my niece got a guitar and a microphone stand. She kept singing "Let it Go" while wearing her Elsa dress and shoes from Frozen. I asked her if she heard Santa and his reindeer on the roof. Every time she heard a noise, she would say, “Santa’s here. I hear him.” We all went to Downtown Disney. My niece’s eyes lit up when she saw a girl dressed like Elsa and girl dressed like Anna from Frozen. She had to go see the snake that bit Grandpa, that was in the Rainforest Café gift shop. She loved the Frozen themed store and the watching them make Caramel apples in the windows of Marceline’s bakery. When we left their house to go home, my niece asked us if we were going to get her some more presents. In 2018, I bought my niece a snowman ears headband. She put Christmas stickers all over my clothes, notebook, and purse.
My stocking would include candy, gift cards, and things Dad bought at the Dollar store. I would hang the stockings from the garland on the railing above the stairs.
The best gift I ever gave my mom socks that say, "If you can read this, leave me alone, I'm watching Christmas movies.”
The best gift I ever received was A Charlie Brown Christmas tree during a white elephant gift exchange at the Thatcher Party. Dad loves the Charlie Brown tree and he keeps it up all year round on the dresser in the basement bedroom.
If I could give a gift to the world, it would be world peace and an end to famine and poverty.
We count down to Christmas by reading a story about Christmas each night in December. I also count down to Christmas by watching a movie every day about Christmas.
We bought a fabric advent calendar from Disney World, that has Mickey and Minnie on it with a tree you place an ornament on every day.
We would have a lot of family parties. We would go to Chuck a Rama with Grandpa Hyrum’s siblings and then go to my uncle’s house for dessert.
We would go to Old Spaghetti Factory at Trolley Square and then go to Temple Square with Mom’s siblings.
We would have a party with our paternal grandma's relatives at the local university alumni building, because my cousin worked there. We would have a big dinner and a white elephant gift exchange.
We would have a party with my paternal relatives on Christmas Eve.
We would visit both sets of Grandparents on Christmas Day.
We would include some traditions from other countries. A couple of Christmas were spent going to get Chinese Food. Mom received a German pickle ornament as a White Elephant gift one year and the following year, Mom bought everyone at our Christmas Eve party a Christmas pickle, because she loved the story of the tradition. I have made or bought Mexican Wedding Cookies because they are Mom’s favorite.
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