This site is about you, but I think it’s only fair of me to share my own favorite Christmas memory before I ask you to to do the same…

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My favorite Christmas memory is 1997.

The previous year, my wife and I moved to a new state. We were far away from friends and family, but there was also a sense that we were doing something exciting.

At Christmas, we came home and did the sort of whirlwind traveling that people do when they’re in from out of state. It was a busy trip and my wife was feeling especially tired. We started getting worried that perhaps she was coming down with the flu, but as it turned out she was pregnant!

I still remember the rush of excitement! We were so excited to share this news with our families!

As I write this, my wife and I are sitting in our living room. The son we found out about back in 1997 is sitting on the couch reading a book, and the son who came five years later is busy putting together lego models…

I think this year is beginning to show some promise too.

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Now it’s your turn.

Share your favorite Christmas memory in the comments!

An Original Story by Nathalie Boisard-Beudin

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I was so tired that I fell asleep in my plate of spaghetti con le vongole^*. Pity that was, for it was excellent. Pity and messy too because I ended up having vongole all over my hair. Of course, now the cats LOVE me, but would Santa Claus? I need a computer this year, so I have been trying to be extra good, even if I have figured out by now that it does not pay. Santa Claus too, being a man, must have that thing about naughty girls ( I suppose he probably has a good one at home already so would be looking forward to the alternative).

So after disgracing myself so thoroughly in the spaghetti affair, I was nursing a glass of whisky on my lap, staring disgruntled into the fire place which held no burning log but rather a gaudy mishmash of luminous optical fibres Christmas tree and a nativity scene where the new born had not yet been placed. Joseph and Mary were still kneeling in prayers – for a prompt and painless deliverance, I suppose – and the angel dangling above looking bored with his harp – he’d always wanted to play the kazoo instead but does anybody pays attention to other people’s wishes in this place? The lone plastic kangaroo figure that had been placed near the manger by a little nephew earlier on was not going to dissent. It had dreamt of a white Christmas, yes, but not one that involved artificial foam or smelt of pasta con le vongole.
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Christmas signified the one day out of the year where my parents put their differences aside and made the holiday magical for me, my sister, and two brothers. The element of surprise was always the best part for me because I never knew what I was going to find under that tree. My mother continued her traditions well into our adulthoods, until she and my father moved halfway across the country.

Once they moved, my husband and I started our own traditions with our two children, plus his family. We could always look forward to a mountain of gifts from my mother-in-law. Then, in July of 2002, everything changed. My father-in-law suffered a massive stroke in his brain stem, which kept him hospitalized for 10 months. The doctors had given him a very poor prognosis. Despite this, he hung on. The first Christmas, all of us went to the hospital to sing carols to him. His favorite Christmas song was O Holy Night. I remember all of us standing around his bed, singing that song and him mouthing the words because he couldn’t talk.

The hospital staff of the various hospitals where he stayed neglected him to the point where he could have died. So, my husband and I searched frantically for a place where he could stay that would not only take care of him, but would give him the therapy he needed to breathe without a trachea tube and walk. We weren’t thinking that he would be able to come home yet because he was in such poor shape.

Just about the time we were about to give up, we found this place called Care Meridian. The facility was a remodeled house in the middle of the boon docks of Morgan Hill. The moment we walked through those doors, we knew that this was where we wanted him to be. They took him in and gave him excellent care, to the point where he could talk to us. He improved so much that he was able to come to my house for Thanksgiving and Christmas. The year was 2003 and our last Christmas we would have with him.

My father-in-law returned home the following spring and passed away in the summer. His illness and related struggles taught us that Christmas isn’t about getting the latest and greatest toys. It’s about love and compassion and hope for a bright future.

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Deborah Woehr is a writer, designer, and blogger who lives in San Jose, California. She began writing ghost stories in 1997. Her novel, Prosperity, is available at Amazon.