The Holiday Reminiscence Thread

[BitterYoungMatador2]

Am I the only one who gets nostalgic around the holidays? I'd give anything to hop into a time machine and redo Christmas of 1988 or 1989. I don't even care about the damn presents. The time off from school. The get togethers. The food. The mall seemed 10 times happier during Christmas shopping. The dumb holiday songs that the local rock station played that you and your friends, 35 years later, can still remember and recite ("Weekends are for drunks. Use drugs.") Asking, "what time is midnight mass" and having that really make sense.

One year, I want to say it was 1987 or so when I would have been about 11, my mother spent the Saturday after Thanksgiving baking and said, "find something to do because I don't want you running in and out of the kitchen." Okay, fine. Our basement was finished into a gameroom, so I snuck into the garage, got out the artificial Christmas tree and set it up. When no one checked on me, I wrapped lights around that *****. When no one checked on me some more, I added every ornament and the garland wrap and the angel. When still no one checked on me, I went into the closet in the game room, dug out the Lionel train we had for going around the tree and set IT up.

By the time she came downstairs, everything was done. Now we usually didn't put the tree up until well after Thanksgiving, but she wasn't going to have me take it down only to put it back up again. You could tell she wanted to be pissed but was too busy being impressed that I staged all this in such a quiet manner that she suspected nothing.

And thus began the tradition of the tree going up the Saturday after Thanksgiving for a few years.

 

[Slacker]

And thus began the tradition of the tree going up
the Saturday after Christmas for a few years.

Better hit that Edit button one more time ...

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

Better hit that Edit button one more time ...

I really shouldn't be allowed to type before the first cup of coffee.

 

[MisterCreosote]

I don’t reminisce a lot about family holidays, other than wishing my dad was still around to join us.

I really, really miss coming back into town, meeting up with all of my high school friends and getting ****faced on Amateur Night. We kept it going into our 30s, even though pretty much all of us had scattered by then. I think the last one was in 2011. It was always so much fun.

We’ve tried unsuccessfully to do it the last two years. Then one of the gang got diagnosed with terminal cancer. He understandably is not in the mood to have a bunch of people from all over the East Coast come see him over a single weekend. And we don’t really feel festive about doing something without him.

Anyway, long story short, I have a sinking feeling that his funeral will be the next time we all get together.

 

[MTM]

I don't know if it is unique to me or other Jews on the site, but I don't have heartwarming family holiday memories because Hanukkah doesn't hit the same as Christmas. There were no grand feasts and no one would come home for the holiday.

Both of my ex wives are Christian, but it was their family's Christmases, not mine. There were no grandparents around for my son, so he would open presents at home with his mom and me.

As a kid, Thanksgiving would rotate between our house and my dad's sister's, but it was pretty much just a meal. It later fell on one of the sister in laws. My brothers and I preferred our aunt's house because she was a much better cook than our mom.