Project Say Something: Christmas Memories

"Tell us about your most-memorable childhood Christmas."

I don't really remember much about my childhood, let alone Christmases. I hated them. I've hated them for a long, long time. Santa, too. But those are my own issues and not what the question is about so... I remember one year, a friend of my dad's gave all the kids gifts for some reason. My sister and I got Cabbage Patch dolls from him. I remember wanting one really bad but knowing there was no way we would get them. And then some man we didn't even know went and proved me wrong. (Now that's what I call Santa.)

I remember pieces from all of them very well because they were pretty much the same: we'd all get up WAY too early, I was a grumpy teenager so I would whine the whole time and throw a fit any time anyone would point a camera in my direction. As grumpy and mean as I may have been, I always loved Christmas morning with my family. It was probably the only morning of the year the bickering and fighting didn't start as soon as we were awake.

To be fair, my most memorable Christmas wasn't when I was a child. It was when I was all grown up, out on my own (with my husband), thousands of miles away from my family and we chose to have Christmas alone - having always had (and insisted on having) Christmas with all our families come ten feet of snow or thousands of places to be at once or whatever. Christmas without family was unheard of and I am an emotional, sentimental sap who at first thought I was losing my damn mind. But I made the suggestion, I made the decision and I loved it. The few Christmases we spent in VA with just the two (and the one with the three) of us were the very best. I guess that's when I really felt all grown up. And boy was it nice to not have to be in a million places at once.