I remember one Christmas as a child, leaving a letter for Santa before going to bed. In the morning, I looked to see if the letter was gone. Sure enough, it was. In its place was a note from the Santa himself with a sprig of evergreen attached. I was thrilled! Santa had written me back and given me a souvenir! Of course, I discovered much later that my mother was "Santa". A very special gift from a thoughtful mom.

I remember a Sunday morning as a child. Mom and Dad were asleep and I was up very early to check out the gifts under the tree. As I moved around the tree, my chenille bathrobe caught a branch of the tree and pulled the whole thing down. You can imagine the crash! My parents came running out and had to put the tree back up and redecorate - and I imagine sweep broken glass ornaments up. They were not happy!

As a child, it was our family's tradition to drive around the neighborhood looking at all the beautifully decorated houses. I was always so spell bound with the beauty. I used to cross my eyes so that everything was out of focus and all the pretty lights sort of melted together. All throughout the evening and the ride, I remember looking up in the sky hoping to see Santa and his sleigh.

Christmas Day was usually spent at my Aunt Laura and Uncle Tom's farm. The farm house was full of family and they opened up the huge dining room table in the living room for all to sit around. Dishes of food would be passed around for each to take a serving. There were so many people and so much food, that by the time the last dish made its round, the first one was coming around again.

Then, there was the "Christmas Fiasco". Our two oldest children were always counting how many gifts with their name were under the tree. Gifts were bought and wrapped and place under the tree throughout December so the count could be uneven at times. Always, in the end each child received the same number of gifts. After a few years of the inevitable - "Jill has more presents than me!" - I devised an ingenious plan. Instead of names, I put numbers on the packages. I kept a master list of what number belonged to who and the gift counting was stymied. WHowver,when Christmas morning came, there was a big problem. You guessed it! I lost the master list. Some of the gifts I could remember and they got to the right child. Others, I didn't have a clue. Gift opening took on a rather bizarre turn, especially when Jim received Jill's Barbie doll. We laughed and laughed and trades were made and all were happy. And, I never did that again!

I remember a Florida Christmas that we almost could call "white". It rained and then froze during the night. We awoke to a land of crystal icicles and was beautiful! This did cause a big problem however because of our tempermental water pump that would often freeze at cold temps. Usually, Alanwould go out, aim a hair dryer on the contacts to warm them up and we'd have water. However, this Christmas morning, it wasn't happening! So, we just opened gifts and enjoyed our time. By noon, the water was back on and we ate dinner late that year.