2010-12-23, 02:32 AM
Oh boy oh boy oh boy!
I loved Christmas growing up. The past few years though it's really lost it's luster....
Christmas Childhood:
Well. My childhood Christmas traditions...Early early on in my childhood, all my siblings and I always would open our presents early. If they were under the tree and had our name on it, that made it ours. Right? My parents eventually figured out a way to solve this problem. They would choose a TV Show teme every year at Christmas time, and wrap and tag all the presents as characters from that TV show. All the children were assigned a character name that was unbeknownst to us until Christmas Day. We'd do awesome shows like the BBC classic Keeping Up Appearances, Rocko's Modern Life, Dexter's Laboratory....It was all just great. We'd never know who was who. And years later, we still reminisce about all those great times and who we were named in Christmas past. Other great traditions include watching A Christmas Story when it airs on TBS I believe it is for 24 hours straight on Christmas Eve/Day. We'd watch that til the wee hours of the morning, then sleep for a few hours, and wake up at 6AM and watch all the classic Mickey Mouse Cartoons. All 8 of us children would cram into one room and have a big sleepover and watch those great shows. I think that was one of the most fun parts of Christmas, was that big family sleepover. Of course with me being the youngest, the few older kids would eventually give up on those sleepovers and sleep in their own rooms. It usually just consisted of the three youngest children, me, my sister, and one of my brothers. That was the best part.
Well, I had the same problem that Sarah had; parents. We'd always be up and rarin' to go at 6AM. My mom typically wouldn't wake up until noon. None of us were allowed to go downstairs to the presents. Period. We had my dad on guard all morning. The reason for this being, would be because "Santa" would give everyone a BIG present, that was left unwrapped, and put by our stalkings in the living room. We'd try to glance down from the stairs, but we'd only be able to see one or two stockings and we'd try to guess whose was whose. One year I specifically remember an SNES taunting us from the stairs, in plain view. One day I actually broke the rules and went downstairs at about 4:30AM, and found I had a shiny new red game boy. I played that Toy Story game for HOURS, then put it back in the box and went upstairs and told everyone else what they got for their big presents...I was the favorite sibling that year! Haha.
Christmas Today:
It really has lost it's luster. Especially being out of public schools now, I don't get that same Holiday Cheer from teachers, my environment, friends, etc. I typically don't go all out with presents, unless it's a few of my close friends, or if it's my assigned sibling 'secret Santa'. I still hate my mom's rule to this day of "friend presents". I haven't done friend presents since I was about 12. My mom's rule was, "If someone gets you a present, you need to get them one back! It's only fair!" So if a friend gave me a present, I'd have to get them one too. She still makes me follow that damn rule today. I have to go last minute shopping for friends tomorrow. I hate it. We still do the "Wait at the top of the stairs big presents" thing. It's just more stupid now because all of us kids are grown adults now...I don't like it. I'd rather just go down, get my presents, and deal with it. We don't do any big family parties now or anything, we just open presents, that is it. We usually just do our own thing after presents are opened for several days. We don't even really associate anymore....haha
And that's my Christmas. I miss the magic...haha
I loved Christmas growing up. The past few years though it's really lost it's luster....
Christmas Childhood:
Well. My childhood Christmas traditions...Early early on in my childhood, all my siblings and I always would open our presents early. If they were under the tree and had our name on it, that made it ours. Right? My parents eventually figured out a way to solve this problem. They would choose a TV Show teme every year at Christmas time, and wrap and tag all the presents as characters from that TV show. All the children were assigned a character name that was unbeknownst to us until Christmas Day. We'd do awesome shows like the BBC classic Keeping Up Appearances, Rocko's Modern Life, Dexter's Laboratory....It was all just great. We'd never know who was who. And years later, we still reminisce about all those great times and who we were named in Christmas past. Other great traditions include watching A Christmas Story when it airs on TBS I believe it is for 24 hours straight on Christmas Eve/Day. We'd watch that til the wee hours of the morning, then sleep for a few hours, and wake up at 6AM and watch all the classic Mickey Mouse Cartoons. All 8 of us children would cram into one room and have a big sleepover and watch those great shows. I think that was one of the most fun parts of Christmas, was that big family sleepover. Of course with me being the youngest, the few older kids would eventually give up on those sleepovers and sleep in their own rooms. It usually just consisted of the three youngest children, me, my sister, and one of my brothers. That was the best part.
Well, I had the same problem that Sarah had; parents. We'd always be up and rarin' to go at 6AM. My mom typically wouldn't wake up until noon. None of us were allowed to go downstairs to the presents. Period. We had my dad on guard all morning. The reason for this being, would be because "Santa" would give everyone a BIG present, that was left unwrapped, and put by our stalkings in the living room. We'd try to glance down from the stairs, but we'd only be able to see one or two stockings and we'd try to guess whose was whose. One year I specifically remember an SNES taunting us from the stairs, in plain view. One day I actually broke the rules and went downstairs at about 4:30AM, and found I had a shiny new red game boy. I played that Toy Story game for HOURS, then put it back in the box and went upstairs and told everyone else what they got for their big presents...I was the favorite sibling that year! Haha.
Christmas Today:
It really has lost it's luster. Especially being out of public schools now, I don't get that same Holiday Cheer from teachers, my environment, friends, etc. I typically don't go all out with presents, unless it's a few of my close friends, or if it's my assigned sibling 'secret Santa'. I still hate my mom's rule to this day of "friend presents". I haven't done friend presents since I was about 12. My mom's rule was, "If someone gets you a present, you need to get them one back! It's only fair!" So if a friend gave me a present, I'd have to get them one too. She still makes me follow that damn rule today. I have to go last minute shopping for friends tomorrow. I hate it. We still do the "Wait at the top of the stairs big presents" thing. It's just more stupid now because all of us kids are grown adults now...I don't like it. I'd rather just go down, get my presents, and deal with it. We don't do any big family parties now or anything, we just open presents, that is it. We usually just do our own thing after presents are opened for several days. We don't even really associate anymore....haha
And that's my Christmas. I miss the magic...haha