My son doesn’t really understand what Christmas is yet. He loves ripping open presents and knocking ornaments off the tree (sounds like our cats), but he doesn’t understand Christmas enough yet to get excited for the holiday. I think I’m excited enough for both of us though! I’ve already been browsing the lists of hot holiday toys and picking our what will go under the tree this year. I have a list of traditions that I started on his first Christmas (this year will be his third) and I’m excited to build more Christmas memories with him. I have so many wonderful Christmas memories from my childhood like decorating the tree, playing with cousins, baking delicious treats, being given my first budget to buy Christmas gifts for my family, and more. Let’s take a little stroll down memory lane…
My first Christmas was in 1978. Before you reach for your calculator, that makes me 35 years old. Check out the wallpaper in the background? Note that I don’t have any hair yet…it took me a while before my curly blonde hair started to grow in.
This next picture is from 1981 – I have hair! I absolutely loved helping with Christmas baking (I still do) and by the icing around my mouth you can see that I loved eating it too. One of my favourite gifts ever was an Easy Bake Oven. I can’t count how many special cakes I made for family in friends in that oven!
Now we jump ahead to 1984. My best friend was Lucy Nellie – my cabbage patch doll. She came everywhere with me. She was my Christmas gift in 1983 and in 1984 I was given a carrier for her along with matching pyjamas and slippers that my Nanny made for us. Lucy and I were inseparable…just check out those two sets of chubby cheeks taking a nap!
My parents love to travel so we were often away from home during the Christmas season. I didn’t mind being away from home because no matter where we were, Santa managed to find us. Santa would bring us a few presents to our holiday home and still fill up our Christmas stockings and leave gifts under the tree at our real home. He’s a pretty generous guy! In the picture below (1989), we were playing on the beach in California when someone announced that Santa was there for a visit and he was handing out presents. It was our lucky day!
One Christmas tradition that my brother and I never missed was creating our Christmas wishlist. We’d sit down with the Sears Wish Book, cut out pictures of the items we wanted and make our own collages of gift ideas. This is a tradition that I look forward to carrying on with my son as he gets older. I’ve already been browsing the list of hot holiday toys and he has a few of them already like the Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Crawl Around Car, the Fisher-Price Little People Disney Princess Klip Klop Stable and the Sesame Street Big Hugs Elmo.
Have you checked out the list of the hot holiday toys yet? I think my son would put the LeapFrog LeapPad 2 Power Learning Tablet at the top of his list. He would be so excited to have some electronics that are just for him!
For more holiday ideas, visit our special Christmas Fun page.
Hot Holiday Toys Contest:
Sears Canada is launching an exciting new contest on Friday, November 15th, 2013 where you could win one of the hot holiday toys of the season! Every Friday (until December 13th), Sears will be hosting Friday Daily Facebook contest giveaway where they’ll be giving away one of their top and hottest holiday toys. How do you enter to win? Simply comment on the Facebook post. It doesn’t get much easier than that! Be sure to mark it on your calendar so you remember to enter each Friday until December 13th.
Is there one Christmas gift from your childhood that stands out as extra special? Let us know in the comments below!
For more fun holiday ideas, follow along on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Bloglovin’. Don’t forget that we have a huge Christmas section on our Holiday Fun page loaded with activity ideas, free printable games and more.
Disclosure: I am part of the Sears Mom Ambassador program with Mom Central Canada and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.