Rebecca

My favorite Christmas memory is when my Aunt Sarah, Allison, and I went to the Convent and went slide ridding. I like this memory so much because it was just we three there. It was like we owned the whole hill. It was so fun I can still remember it to this day. We were at our house and were got a phone call, it was our Aunt Sarah. She told us that we had to get some warm clothes on because we were going slide ridding. She was at our house in no time. We kissed our parents good bye and headed off. When we got to the Convent after ridding in the car for five minutes we got out. Sarah popped the trunk and we got our sleds out. Allison and Sarah took one and I took the other. We went down the hill about a billion times. When we came back up the hill for our last time down a Nun told us we had to leave because it was getting very late so we took our last and final time down. I won because I had lees weight on the sled I had. So sthat was my favorite Christmas memory.
My family’s tradition is on Christmas Eve we go down Memaw and Pepop’s house and open the presents they have for us. Then we watch TV while Memaw and my mother get the food ready for the next day. When they get done with that we go home and go to bed. Then Christmas morning we get out of bed early and wake our parents up. Then by time they wake up it’s 7:30. We open our presents and my mother takes pictures while my father gets all the wraping paper off the floor. When we are done we play with our toys for a hour or so. Then we take some of the presents we got and take them down to my Memaw and Pepop’s house were we show them what we got. Then the last thing we do is EAT!!!

Jessica

When I jump in my bed and escape the cool breezes blowing through my room, I start wondering what I'm going to get on Christmas Eve. I lie awake in my bed until I finally dose off. As I awake by the blinding morning light slowly peaking through my curtains I realize it is Christmas Eve, a day before Christmas, and a couple hours before I leave and go to my traditional Christmas Eve dinner at my grandma's house.

Going to my grandma's house is a time for being with the ones you love the most and playing games like poker and scrabble with my rarely seen cousins. After eating the delicious food cooked by my grandma, the best part of my family tradition finally comes around, opening presents! The eager kids gather around the brightly decorated tree like buzzards would on a dead rabbit. My grandma sits down and begins to call out names. Wrapping paper immediately fills the room as the kids rip away. Presents under the tree slowing disappear.

As the night progresses the adults get into a rowdy game of cards. The kids become tired with their presents kept close by them as they lay down. When the parents finally realize they've lost too much money gambling, they awake the sleeping kids. After many hugs and good-bys are given, the parents drag their kids out to their frost and snow covered cars and pull down the icy driveway.

My mom drops me off at my house and as I walk in the door the snow on my shoes immediately melts with the warmth. Before I go to bed I have to share with my dad what I received for Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve is different from all nights because I sleep on the couch waiting for that very important next morning. You see, Christmas Day is when my family opens presents.

Sleeping on the couch with the beautifully decorated tree and the bright lights flickering on and off makes it very easy to go to sleep. I stay up late looking at the lights wondering what Christmas Day will be like.

Jonathan

One Christmas my family and me went down stairs, got dressed, and went to my uncle’s house to open our presents. When we got there were a lot of Christmas presents under the tree, but they all were not ours, because he has also two kids. Therefore, we started to open presents that were ours. One thing that I got was a Gameboy and a Pacman game from my uncle. Then we went back to my house to open our presents and eat. We always eat after we open all of our presents before we eat because we have always done it that way so are presents would not get are presents dirty.

Our tradition in my family is that we all get together at my aunt's house and eat some food that we all like, like turkey, potatoes, corn, and some good snacks like, chips, mints, and chocolate. Sometimes all of the family comes to eat at my aunts house with us. Also we go to my dad's grave and put tons of flowers on it. Then we go back to my house and open some of our presents.

Nikki

Christmas of 1996 was the Christmas I remember the most. I hadn’t seen my dad in a few months. He had been working in Nebraska. My mom and I were still living in Kentucky.

This was one of my best Christmases because my Dad came home to be with my mom and me. He brought me tons of presents. He got home two days before Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, I was allowed to open my gifts. It is kind of a tradition opening gifts on Christmas Eve. Dad had bought me a bunch of John Deere toys and a tackle box full of fishing equipment. This is a Christmas I will always remember.

Eddie

My favorite Christmas memory is when I was outside playing in the snow one day. My Uncle had made a huge snowball for a Snowman. I went up the hill and stood behind the snowball and gave it a push. The snowball went forward and then it rolled backward and I got stuck in the snowball. I rolled down the hill inside the snowball. I was screaming and my Uncle heard it and came and dug me out. Then my Uncle and I went inside. He told everybody they all started laughing at me.

My Christmas tradition is when we go to my Grandma’s house and everybody comes over. When we eat on Christmas, we always have pie and ham. We all play games like cards and board games. My Uncle and I go ice fishing every year. My Grandma reads Christmas stories to all the kids

Nicholas

When we got them outside rode them all day, I was ramping all day.

Kevin

Every year my Christmas begins on December 24th. We spend our Christmas on the road. We start at the Pelle Family Christmas around 4:00 P.M. From there we go to my Great Grandma Steidel’s for the Steidel Family Christmas. We come home on Christmas Eve and unload the car and then we go to bed so we can get up early and hit the road again.

Christmas morning begins at my house. We usually get up at 8:00 A.M. and open gifts. Then we are off again. We go to my Mamaw and Papaw Steidel’s house and get a car -load off gifts. We come home to unload and reload and go to my Nanny and Papaw Bakers for a late breakfast. Once again, we come home and unload and reload. After the Baker family Christmas, we have one more stop, my Grandma, and Grandpa Middendoff’s house. We go there for Christmas Dinner. Again we load the car of gifts and return home. Another Christmas on the road.

A Christmas memory that I have was my last Christmas. It was my baby cousin Mason’s first Christmas. He was only about a month old. I was very happy to spend his first Christmas with him.

Paige

My memory on Christmas is when my mom and brother played a big trick on me. I told my mom that I wanted a new pair of shoes. My mom told me that my shoe size has begun to get so big I could just wear an old pair of my brothers. I thought about this, but I didn't want any old pair of shoes I wanted some new ones. Christmas morning came and my first present I opened were none other than an old pair gym shoes. Boy, was I mad. I was steaming like a train. My mom and brother got a good kick out of that. Then my mom told me to look under my right shoe. It was a little piece of paper that read “go up stairs and look under your brothers bed.” I ran up stairs and looked under the bed. There they where, the shoes.
A tradition that my family does during the time of Christmas is we all go to my grandma's grave and then we decorate it. After we finish we all go to my uncle Rods house and eat and open presents and spend time with each other.

Nick

My favorite Christmas memory is when it was Christmas Eve; my Dad, my brother, and I went to Cleveland to visit my grandma and grandpa. When we got there, we ate turkey, ham, and homemade pies. After dinner, we went walking around out side visiting people we haven’t seen all year. We walked across the street and met my Dad's best friends from when he lived in Cleveland.
It was starting to snow again, the news report said that we would get three additional inches, we already had four inches on the streets. We all started back to the house.
My grandma started to make some hot chocolate. We went downstairs to see my grandpa's collection of NasCars. He had been collecting them for 18 years. He had all of the cars that had been made except for a couple of the new cars.
Grandpa gave my dad a present that he wanted him to open right away. So, my Dad opened it. It was a piece of wood. Grandpa started laughing, my brother and I started laughing with grandpa, and then my grandpa pulled out another gift. Grandpa gave the gift to my Dad and told him to open it. When my Dad opened the gift, it was a golden Jeff Gordon car, my dad's favorite NASCAR driver.
We went back upstairs and had some hot chocolate. Then we had to open some presents. I opened one of my presents and I got a NASCAR coat with Jeff Gordon’s colors on it. My brother got the same thing but with a 24 number on the back. I also got five NasCars. My brother also got 5 different NasCars. We played on a race car track. Grandpa had then went to bed. In the morning we got up at seven, every body was a wake. We said well good by and went on are way home. When we got home it was about 12:30 at night.
My brother and I open are presents at home and then we went to bed in the morning we went out to showed off are new stuff.

My Christmas memory would have to be the year I went to my grandma’s house. On Christmas Eve, when we got there we all ate and ran all over the place. Then finally when my aunts and uncles stopped us, (about two hours later) after they played a few games of cards and talked. We sat around and opened presents.
After all presents were given and then unwrapped, we played with them until ten at night. When we went home, I went to sleep as fast as I could so morning would come. That morning we opened gifts then I went to the basement and accidentally stepped on a screw. My mom drove me to St.Luke. I had to have stitches. It hurt after a while. Then I went home a sat down, and played with all my new stuff. That was always the joke for a while but then the tradition stopped when my grandma died.
The Christmas tradition before she died was that, every year we went to her house on Christmas Eve. We spent three hours playing games or eating food then we opened presents and went home, When we got home we had went straight to sleep. Then when it was Christmas morning we sat and opened presents. Then got dressed and went with my Grandpa Singleton and went to my uncle Dave's house to open more presents, eat then to go home.

Dana

Christmas is a fun Holiday at my house. We have the entire family there and get to enjoy fellowship with one another. It's nice having everyone there and being friendly to each other.
We have a Christmas tradition that is different than other peoples. Instead of opening gifts early Christmas morning, we open our gifts on Christmas Eve. I think the reason we do that is so we can visit Grandma on Christmas day. Anyway, on Christmas Eve, we celebrate Christmas and Mom cooks up a huge feast. We always have ham, turkey, and a lot of side dishes and deserts. Then we watch T.V. together as a family and take some pictures.
On Christmas mooring, we get up early to the smell of a wonderful breakfast. Mom prepares a breakfast layout fit for a king. We ate our breakfast and take then goes get ready to visit Grandma.
At Grandma's all my extended family is there like my uncles, aunts, and cousins. All of Grandma's children give her presents and we get to watch her open them. Then Grandma has presents for all of us and we open then as a group.
After the gifts are opened, we eat the feast that Grandma cooked for us. After that the men sit around and talk. While there talking my aunts takes us to see the Christmas lights.
After all that, we go home. We watch T.V. and go to sleep.
My favorite Christmas was the Christmas of 1994. I will allowes remember that Christmas because it was just like the Christmas’s on T.V. the weather had provided plenty of snow to make it a white Christmas. In addition, the temperature was just right. The sun was out and there was no wind blowing at all that made it a perfect Christmas day.
The thing that happened that Christmas was an accident with my cat, Susan. We were all sitting around in the family room watching TV. Anyway, we had our Christmas Tree up in that room. As we were watching a TV program Susan suddenly jumped up on the Christmas tree and started climbing up it.
She (Susan) made all kinds of noise going up that tree. There were ornaments falling off and breaking while all the lights were blinking. As Susan went further up the tree, it began to topple. When she got to the top, the whole tree fell over into the middle of the floor.
In the end, no one (including Susan) got hurt; in addition, no serious damage was done to anything so we had a good laugh.
The tree fell so quick that we were helpless to stop the tree from falling or to catch Susan. After we had our laugh we put the tree back up right and picked up the broken ornaments. We did a little rearranging to the tree to make it look good again and started watching TV again.
Every Christmas someone brings up the cat in the tree incident. It will probably be a Christmas story told in my family for a long time. I know I will not forget it the look in that cat's eyes as the tree fell over still in addition, we laughed.

Ryan

Every year on Christmas Eve my brother my dad and me go to my Grandmother's house. All of my relatives are there. First we eat turkey and ham then we open our presents. First, the younger kids open their presents then the older kids open their presents. Then we all go home and go to sleep. When my brother and I wake up we go wake up my dad, we open our presents, and my dad takes pictures of us.
My most memorable Christmas was my brothers first Christmas because I had to help him open his presents because he was too little to open them. That was my Christmas memory and my tradition.
Jessica C

A tradition that our family has on Christmas is I always set my alarm to go off about 3:30 in the morning. I wake up and go downstairs where I see all of the beautiful wrapped presents. The Christmas tree shining so bright from the lights on the tree with all of our ornaments hanging up covering the tree. I look at my presents seeing how big they are and who has the biggest presents of them all out of my sister, brother, Mom, and Dad. After doing that I’m so excited that I want to wake up my family but I know it’s too early. I go back upstairs where I lay in bed thinking that as soon as I fall asleep the sooner I get to open up my presents. Most of the time I can’t go to sleep because I’m thinking of how much fun it’s going to be to open all of those presents. I think of the biggest one I have and the prettiest one that is mine. I close my eyes trying to get the presents out of my head but I still can image our family opening the presents around the brightly colored tree. Finally I fall asleep, though I wake up as soon as I fall asleep. Soon enough it’s too hard for me to go on waiting for the time to fly by. So I go and wake up my parents. They say it’s okay to open presents. I call for my sister and brother. As they come down the stairs yawning and wiping their eyes. “Can we go back to bed and wake up about 10:00?" my sister and brother asked. "Mom and Dad it's time to open presents," I said. The time that I normally get up my family up at 8:30. We all sit around our tree except my sister who sits on the heater. I’m the one who is so excited that I pass out the presents. My Mom and Dad normally take pictures and videotape us. After opening our presents we are not as excited, as we were when we came down because we know that the presents are already opened. I think the most exciting part about Christmas is not knowing what’s under the wrapping paper. I have fun on Christmas and I know my family enjoys Christmas.
One of my favorite Christmas memories is when I made my family get up at 3:30. They were so mad. As soon as we got done opening presents we went to sleep. Then when we got up we looked at our presents some more.

Ashley

My favorite Christmas memory is not on Christmas, but on Christmas Eve. They day would start by my brothers, sister, mother, father, and I getting up for breakfast. Then we would all get dressed in warm and nice clothes. We would all look our best because we were going to our grandparent's house on our dad's side.

After we were finished, we would load up in our van and head out to the Boon-docks. The Boon-docks is what we called the countryside. It only took about ten minutes to get to. When we got there we would wait for all my uncles, aunts, and cousins to get there. Then we would all gather around the tree and open our presents. After opening all the presents, we would eat lunch. We would be there until three or four o'clock.

After we were done at my dad's side of the family, we would head over to my mother's parents. We would also have to wait for my aunt, uncle, and my cousins to show up. Then we would start opening more presents. After opening all the presents, we would have a feast to eat. Then after eating we would be on our way home.

We were always excited on the way home because we knew the P.J Fairy had came for a visit. The P.J Fairy was Mrs. Claus coming to good kid's houses to give them pajamas to wear for Christmas. My favorite pajamas were genie ones. They were pink and very comfy. That is my favorite Christmas memory.

Nicole

Chelsie

My Christmas tradition is on Christmas Eve when all of my family members come to my house for dinner. After we eat we all go into the living room and we exchange presents. We all show off our presents and see what everyone else got. My grandma brings everyone presents. Sometimes it's a bracelet and sometimes it's something else.
That night after everyone leaves Mom, Dad, Stacey, Teddy, and I all get to open one present from under the Christmas tree. The next day we go to my grandma Kate's house, There we pick names for a secret Santa's. And for that person we buy them a present.
My favorite Christmas memory was when I was about seven and my grandma made me a huge bear using my favorite material, Precious Moments.

Jillian

Every Christmas Eve my family goes up to my grandma's and grandpa's and eats dinner. My grandma gives us stockings that have presents. Then we open presents and then leave. When we get home my mom gets out some cookies and the milk. I set my alarm clock for seven. When I wake up I get up the rest of my family up and open presents. I opened my presents. Then my mom fixes us some cinnamon rolls and I eat cereal with the rolls.
My favorite memory is when my brother got up late at around 3:00 A.M. and we were caught by my mom in the morning trying to look at our presents that were not wrapped. My mom said for me to get the rest of the family up, when I got them up we opened our presents, and we did not get in trouble.

Tyler