Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Christmas Memories by Kristin Wallace

Christmas Eve Service
In the U.S. we just had Thanksgiving and we’re on to Christmas. Many already have Christmas trees and lights are up on the house. Are you one of those who string up lights and decorations on your house?

I recently found these in storage
Christmas always makes me think of being a kid and the excitement of the big morning. We always went to church on Christmas Eve for the candle lighting service, which is the most beautiful thing. Sometimes we’d open presents on Christmas Eve because we usually drove to see my aunt, uncle and cousins for Christmas. When I was a kid I wanted an Easy Bake Oven. Another year Cabbage Patch Dolls were the rage. I got one in the summer,
Christmas, age 5
which was a preemie in the summer and then I ended up getting two at Christmas. My parents had 
My parents had ordered them months before because the stores would sell out almost immediately. But I think my favorite present ever was a huge, stuffed bunny that I got when I was about five. I think it was over 5-ft. tall. I loved that thing! It was yellow and soft and I could sit on its lap. 

These days it’s harder to figure out what I want. What I really want is to be a world-famous author and make my total living off my writing, lol. I’m not sure anyone can give me that present, not even Santa Claus.

What are your favorite Christmas memories from growing up? Was there was special present you really wanted?

Kristin Wallace is the USA Today Best Selling Author of inspirational and contemporary romance, and women’s fiction filled with “Love, Laughter and a Leap of Faith”. She is the author of two bestselling series, Covington Falls Chronicles and Shellwater Key Tales. Look for her latest releases FALLING FOR YOU AT CHRISTMAS, on sale now for on Amazon, B&N, iTunes & Kobo. For more info on her books, visit Kristin Wallace Author.


Want a FREE book? I’m on Instafreebie where you can download my previous holiday novella, FINDING YOU AT CHRISTMAS. DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE BOOK! 

3 comments:

Sarah Raplee said...

When I was seven, I saw the most beautiful xylophone in a store window Christmas display! I wanted it soooo much. I had a 'baby xylophone' with colored bars and only one scale. I played by ear and got frustrated by the lack of range.The one in the window was a 'real' one with multiple scales including sharps and flats.

But my family was struggling to make ends meet and I knew it cost too much, so I forgot about it.

Somehow my parents managed to come up with the money to by that xylophone! I was so surprised and thankful! I still have it.

Judith Ashley said...

I've many memories of presents I did not get---trucks, balls and other toys my brothers did. I was the oldest, a girl and back in the day it was unseemly for a girl to be playing with trucks so I got dolls. When older I got perfume and clothes. However, I do have wonderful memories of Christmas when I was young. We also attended Christmas Eve Communion service. We could open one present on Christmas Eve from someone who we would not see. Christmas morning was torturous to young children. A full breakfast (orange juice, bacon, eggs, toast, a homemade Stollen my mother had made, several cups of coffee (just to torture the children) before presents were distributed by my dad. His last Christmas my brothers took turns because Dad was too ill to. They asked him which gift to hand out next...that's probably my favorite Christmas memory. What we all did to make sure it was as perfect as we could because I think it was my dad's most favorite of all the holidays. He was with us another 8 weeks or so. Miss him still.

Maggie Lynch said...

Loved this post, and also loved Judith's memory with her father.

As the oldest of 9 children, my memories of Christmas were all about home made gifts. There were perhaps two or three Christmases in my childhood where I actually remember receiving a store-bought gift--like a doll or socks. Most of my upbringing was about making gifts. We would begin right after Thanksgiving and each of us would secretly make things for each sibling and for each parent. Some of these were thanks to projects in school, while others were creative offerings of flowers, twig sculptures, a gathering of objects artfully placed into a jar or a box, paper drawings, a homemade ornament, etc. On the rare occasion we got together with other relatives--grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins--we would each pick a name from a hat at Thanksgiving and then make something for that person in addition to our immediate family gifts.

I remember when I learned to knit and crochet--I was 8 or 9 years old--and my gifts took on much more consideration. :) I'm very happy for that childhood because we knew from an early age that it wasn't the actual present that made it so special--it was the thought and work that someone put into it just for me.