Random Christmas Memories

Ah...Santa...here's a photo gallery of kids who probably have lots of memories of Christmas too

I've never been "tagged", but I thought I'd play anyway.

Here are five random childhood Christmas memories:

1)I was about five years old and I'm looking out the kitchen window into the night sky with my grandma on Christmas Eve. I say, "Gran, look! I saw Santa and his reindeer go flying by! Just over those trees over there!"

Now, I remember that I didn't really see anything at all. I just thought it would be neat if my Gran thought I saw Santa. I remember Gran cottoning on to my fabrication: "You did NOT see Santa Claus! You're fibbing!"

Well, I WAS fibbing, but I was pretty upset that Gran would call me on it--and I didn't even know at the time that grown-ups fibbed about seeing Santa all the time.

2) I'm a little girl visiting the mall to see Santa. I was pretty sure he was the real thing, but what really convinced me was the real live reindeer with jingle-bell harnesses that were being kept in a paddock right out in the middle of the mall. Seeing those warm, breathing animals made me believe. God is in the details.

3)My father worked as a film editor for the CBC back in the '70's (he worked on shows like The Beachcombers). One year my brother and I went to the CBC's Christmas party. Two things stick in my mind.

One was that Santa's elves were dressed up as mimes, and therefore they didn't talk. We were three and five years old, and I remember we didn't think much of mimes even at that early age. I have a photograph where we're seated beside these elves. I have a most suspicious look on my face. My brother looks worried.

I also remember that at the end of this party it seemed as if the ceiling opened up and millions of balloons rained down upon us. It was a really big room with high ceilings and it seemed like the air was filled with them. I was thrilled.

4)The year that I was eleven my favourite present was a plastic organizer with little plastic drawers. You know, the kind some people store nails and screws in, or fishing tackle, or sewing odds-and-ends.

I don't remember what I had actually asked for Christmas that year, but that was the present that remains clear in my mind. My younger brother got one too, and we both agreed that little drawers to put things in was a great concept. Even today, either of us can receive a "box-to-put-things-in" type of present and be as happy as a clam.

5) We always had Christmas crackers at our plates at the holiday dinner. The most mysterious prize that could sometimes be found inside was the Fortune-Telling Fish. They were made out of a thin shiny red plastic as thin as paper, and they would roll around in one's hand, flipping this way and that, or curling up and lying still. The different positions the fish would end up in all meant something different. I was fascinated.