[Lazamataz]

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.

[nmh]

Good article!

Memories instead of things.

TIME with your children!

Forget this crap about "quality time". It's bull!

Kids don't schedule their emotions or needs - it's all about QUANITY TIME.

[Bushwacker777]

The best gift you can give your kids is another brother and/or sister.

[AppyPappy]

Making memories is what we parents do at Christmas.

I remember my dad, going outside on Christmas Eve right after bedtime. Then we'd hear a gunshot. He'd rush back into the house and tell us that Santa killed himself just before he got to our house. Those were the days. We must live on a difficult street because the Easter Bunny did the sme dang thing.

[beltfed308]

I am still waiting for my 40 megawatt plasma rifle.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

The thing of it is...

you don't KNOW that you want the memories UNTIL you're 44...

when you're a kid you want the stuff.

[beezdotcom]

I remember on my daughter's second Christmas, she pulled a pair of Thomas the Tank slippers out of her stocking, and she would have been ecstatic to stop right there. Then the grandparents proceeded to overwhelm her with a mountain of stuff. She was measurably disappointed when she had to stop enjoying herself fawning over the slippers, and get to work unwrapping stuff.

If I had been a few years wiser, I would have stood my ground and held the rest of the gifts in abeyance...

[ASOC]

Thanks for posting.

Good reminder that in the end, all we can take with us is

what we have done,

what we are and

the love of those we have shared our lives with over the years.

Tho I have seen folks working on travelers checks.....

[adgirl]

Really cute story, but when this kid was six it was 1968 or 1969--the 1970 car wouldn't have been around, neither would the blow dryers or the Farrah Fawcett hair do. I know because he's my age and I had the Farrah do--but not when I was six. At that time it was Shag hair cuts, pixie cuts or long hair wound up in orange juice cans . . .I'm just saying

[The_Victor]

Bump for Mrs_Victor.

[moonman]

We were sooooooooo poor when I was a kid. If I didn't awake 12/25 morning with a .... , I didn't have anything to play with.

[jonno]

Great!

Thanks for the post.

Merry Christmas,
Jon

[InvisibleChurch]

Ah, Christmas memories of receiving gifts like underwear and socks. Things Mom and Dad would buy me anyway but Christmas was an excuse to give them to me as a gifts. I NEVER buy my kids anything useful for Christmas, just toys, toys, toys.

[edcoil]

I remember my dad was in Vietnam for Christmas, my older brother helped my mom play Santa as my younger brother and I watched from the top of the stairs.

The next year they divorced and I don't remember to many more Christmas's until 30 years later when my wife and I started to have Christmas for our own.

[Wormwood]

You'll shoot your eye out.

[diamond6]

bttt

[Hatteras]

"And when we were done swapping gifts with each other, we gave our gifts to Jingles – six hunks of rawhide"

You swapped rawhide bones so you could give them all to the dog? Huh? Is this some kind of cult thing?

[Dems_R_Losers]

Sorry, but my kids want stuff. And I enjoy shopping for them. But we'll find a way to slip in some memories for them too while we are giving them all the stuff. That's what good parents do.

We have a children's book called "Santa Mouse." It's a long poem about a mouse that goes along with Santa, then he falls off the sleigh and gets lost. He has a small package tied with yellow ribbon, so he goes into a house and puts the package in the Christmas tree, and when Santa gets to the house he sees the light bounce off the yellow ribbon and finds Santa Mouse. So we always leave a small present tied with a yellow ribbon in the Christmas tree for our kids to find, from Santa Mouse. It's one of their favorite things on Christmas morning.