I'm a collector of stories.

Especially ones of the human experience.

With Christmas just around the corner, I thought
it would be interesting, and fun, for us to share
some of our experiences of a really memorable
Christmas. It could be a childhood Christmas,
a war time Christmas, or whatever you wish to
relate. But, it must be a time that meant a great
deal to you...

I'll go first.

I remember as a child I loved to go shopping
with my mum, not only because we ate a special
lunch, but what I loved the most was visiting
the pet shop in the shopping centre. I loved
looking at all the pets.

I used to beg my mum to buy me a pet, but the
answer was always the same.

"You can't have one until you're grown up enough
to look after it. You're still too young, wait a
few more years."

So I waited, and waited. I didn't care what kind of
a pet I had, as long as it belonged to me.

Finally, one Christmas morning I found a great big
box under the tree.

My hands started to shake with excitement as I opened
the box. There inside, looking at me very quietly,
were two big brown eyes, belonging to a black puppy,
with a white patch over his right eye.

"For me?" I gulped and turned to look at my parents.

"Yes, he belongs to you," said my mum.

"I think I'll call him Patch," I said looking at
my mum.

"You're a lucky little girl," said dad, giving me
a hug.

I knew I was, as Patch jumped up and licked my face.

Christmas story's? I have one Foxy.
Last election day as I set up my stall very early a gentle wonderful couple set up the sitting members one next to me.
A Liberal and still the sitting member he held on by his teeth.
The man spoke my name, it turned out we had last seen one another 30 years ago.
I had as a last resort entered his paper shop on Christmas eve trying to cash my pay check.
Trying to provide Christmas for 5 kids and my mum after a rough year.
The one that saw me go from employer to employee.
He cashed it!
What a rush, not my first but I had to run to get Christmas in the boot of my car.
I again told the couple how much it meant to me and my family.
We spoke with mutual respect and played verbal tennis in a good natured way about the result.
Both thought we had it in the bag.
Foxy the story speaks about us Aussies too, we rarely hate one another as a result of our differences
Oh I gave that lady my chair she gave me her home cooked cake
Would not be dead for quids would you?
Merry Christmas to EVERY one.

Time upon a once days a many ago. I was all alone (ALL together “’awwww”) so I pulled a double on the crisis service 8 hr phone 6 (joke) trouble team. They have a truism a in the service that says “if any dramatic events or severe weather then we’ll get no sleep.

10 am start and the phones started slowly. Just he odd “you’re a saint” call and “Oh god the rellies are coming for lunch what will I give them, they hate me anyway” and the very odd regular who told us about “the many women he’d bed since breakfast “when he gets excited you tell him to call his Dr then ring the contact through.

Later in the am was the “pissed off kids time” like those who got undies instead of the latest toy and “Why can’t they go to their mates instead of the boring family celebrations”

After 12 the real work began it was ‘Eleanor Rigby’ time all those poor soles who had no one to tell us their sad stories others were heart breaking. Busy busy.

One had to be careful because the caller might come around to share Christmas spirit with you. They (M&F) were often drunk but some women would arrive in BMWs, mercs and jags, dressed for entertaining. Great but a NO NO for good reason. One pair met outside and consummated their meeting in full view of our security cameras.
One caller cooked and delivered a Christmas dinner complete with a nice Chardonnay. We weren’t permitted to accept gifts so it was sent down to the homeless dinner down stairs. The management were puzzled why someone would donate a legless chicken and partly eaten cake with brandy cream sauce scraped off. Despite the inevitable calls about family fights and disintegration the shift wasn’t so bad.
Dutch Doris and I spent most of the night on site trying to stop other’s Family Christmases turning too disastrous. At 5am we discovered the remainder of the wine in the fridge (fancy) wrote our reports then went to our respective homes, exhausted.

Hi Foxy,
what a lovely surprise to find a thread like this. And some wonderful stories already!
The most memorable Christmas story in my house would be this one:

Noises coming from the living room woke me up at around 5am on Christmas morning.
Ignoring it at first because I thought that my cat probably had one of these flying sprint urges that cats sometimes have, I half-dozed off again.

More noises, and my brain started waking up. Dragging myself out of bed, I tiptoed to the living room.

In front of the Christmas tree, where I had, the night before, arranged the oh-so-prettily wrapped presents for all the family, sat my son, barely two.

Not a possessed cat but a hurricane, embodied in a little boy, had ravaged the room.
Sitting amongst mountains of Christmas wrappings, he had been dismantling -and still eating- the ruins of the gingerbread house, which I had slaved over the previous night when the kids were sound asleep.
The crackers had been cracked, and he presents, all unwrapped, lay scattered throughout the room.

How my husband and I managed to re-wrap the whole lot again before my 4 year-old daughter woke up, while trying to explain to my son that 'families unwrap presents together' I don't recall.
My daughter didn't seem to mind that Santa's elves did a sloppy job this Christmas, and that the ginger-bread house looked like an edible jigsaw.

Thanks Everyone for your contributions so far.

Each one is so different and interesting.

The feast of Christmas at our house is always
preceded by four weeks of Advent, a period of
"fasting and contemplation."

"Kucios," Christmas Eve, is the last day of fasting,
followed by sumptuous feasting.

No less than 12 dishes must be served at this special
Christmas Eve meal, beginning with the recitation of
Grace and the breaking of a special unleavened wafer,
called "Plotkele." This wafer, blessed by the parish
priest, is shared by all at the table, signifying a
spirit of unity.

Christmas Eve was always special. This particular year,
my step-father had suffered a stroke six months prior,
and was partially paralysed down his right-side. He
had lost the power of speech. When it came his turn to
share the wafer with me, he very slowly and clearly
uttered the words, "M-M-M-ME-R-R-Y C-C-CH-R-R-I-S-T-M-A-S!"

Mum started to cry, I joined her.

It was the best present any of us could have received.

What lovely stories!!

I can still remember when I was a child I was always so excited about Christmas. We always put milk and cookies on the table for Santa and one Christmas eve after I went to bed I quietly sneaked down to the Christmas tree and to my astonishment saw my father eating one of the cookies. Really angry I announced to my father how he dared to eat Santa's cookies as I was afraid that I wouldn't get any presents from him if they were all gone. :-)
I had forgotten about it, but my father told me this story when I was older and it is being told over and over every Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you all!