On Christmas Day, our family opened all of our gifts upstairs...and my aunt and uncle and their kids opened their downstairs...then when we were done, we went downstairs to see all what they gave to each other...then my uncle would drag out a bottle of Mogen David wine, and we would all have a Christmas Drink(they even gave us kids a small glass of wine)...then everyone would come upstairs to our house, and we would show off the gifts we got from each other..then my dad would get out a bottle of brandy, and we would all have a drink of brandy(This tradition began the first Christmas we owned that house together, when I was only 7, and it continued right up until all of us kids left home)
Now my uncle alway gave cheapie gifts to his family...but this one year, he really outdid himself with cheapie and stupid gifts...
The gift he bought my aunt, his dear wife, was outrageous...he bought her a giant box of Tide, you know that box that was so big, it needed a wooden handle...
Well, my dad and mom and me and little brother, could almost not hold in our laughing at such a rotten present...along with the Tide, he bought her a box of malted milk balls...
So, my dad, who was quite the trickster, cooked up a scheme for the next Christmas...he always gave me lots of money, to shop for mom for her Christmas gifts...he worked a lot, and he thought being as I was now a young teenager, I knew better what mom would like
But after that year with my uncles 'Tide' present, he wanted to play a trick on mom...he told me to buy all the regular nice gifts, but he was going to buy a bunch of rotten presents, and wrap them, and give them to mom, while hiding her good presents, until she had the shock of opening her rotten gifts...
So Christmas came, and out dad marched with the pile of Christmas presents for mom...Oh, her eyes lit up...until she opened them...a box of popcorn, a cheap box of candy, a clipboard to hold her maps on vvacation, some other crap, and oh yes, a giant box of Tide...
Poor mom, she started to cry...every year she had gotten great gifts, and now this year, junk...well, we all laughed and dad went into the bedroom, and got her real gifts, and she opened them, and was happy again...
But every single year after that, it was a ritual, that me and dad and little brother bought junky gifts for mom, and she had to open them, and do pretend crying, before she was allowed to have her other 'real' Christmas presents...
That, to me, is a great Christmas memory...