Your Favorite Christmas Memories

In honor of Christmas coming so soon, we thought we’d poll our audience and ask our friends and family to share some of their favorite Christmas memories with us. We thought we’d join in the fun too. Enjoy this compilation of stories that will warm your heart and make you feel more nostalgic than ever.  

One fond memory I have of Christmas when I was young is doing the 12 Days of Christmas for someone in our neighborhood. Typically my parents would choose someone older, a couple or widow/widower. Then, as a family, we would go to the store and select small gifts for each of the twelve days. These could be things like pens, lotion, treats, etc., just small items. Then we would wrap each item and come up with a rhyme for each day to attach to the gift. Then for the 12 days before Christmas, we would stop by each day to doorbell-ditch the gift and run away and hide, letting them wonder who it was. Finally, on Christmas Day we would visit as a family, reveal ourselves, and deliver a homemade treat. It was always so exciting to deliver gifts in secret each day, and so heartwarming to visit finally and see how much such a simple act could mean to another person we didn't know very well.

- Tosha 

Another favorite tradition I have at Christmastime is attending the German Adventsingen at BYU. My family heritage is German and Swiss, and my dad served his LDS mission in German, so my family loves the German Christmas traditions. The program consists of readings from the New Testament in German, and a number of musical performances. There is a Salzburg Folk instrumental group, a collection of Alphorn players, and a number of choirs and vocal groups.  The groups perform traditional Christmas songs, and always end with Stille Nacht.  The program used to be held in the Provo Tabernacle, and now is often held at BYU since it is posted by the Germanic and Slavic Languages department. The music is so nostalgic. It's a great way to kick off the advent and spend time together as a family.

-Tosha 

My favorite Christmas memory is sleeping downstairs with my sisters Christmas Eve. I love it because it's such a vivid memory in my mind of when I was younger. I also remember not being able to sleep because I would always get mad at my sisters because they would stay up so late watching Christmas movies. That part was fun too. We also had a phone we would use to call our parents when we would wake up, and our parents would have to come down and get us. 

- Aubry 

On Christmas Eve me and my sisters go down stairs in the basement and sleep over for the whole night. It is so so so so fun!

- 8-year-old Gracie

Jordan and I were engaged when we spent our first Christmas with his family. Everyone was squished into his sister's apartment with eager excitement to open everyone’s gifts. We all opened our gifts one by one and you couldn’t believe the laughter and love everyone had while we opened THE BEST gifts ever. Paper towels, a broom, garbage bags, cookie mix and even a gag gift to me from my brother in law: dirt essential oils that smelt like Idaho! I will always remember this Christmas because the gifts given weren’t magnificent, but the love and appreciation everyone had for being together as a family was priceless. 

 - Sara 

One of my favorite memories about Christmas is family. I am one sibling out of nine sisters and brothers. So imagine all of us gathering together to enact Jesus’s birth story. We had costumes for the Shepard, wise men, Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus. It was always filled with excitement, noise and joy!

- Cindy 

When I was little I remember during Christmas we had a little candlelit dinner. It was Christ centered. We would eat fish, bread and foods they would've eaten during the time he lived. We drank wassail. If it snowed, we liked to go sledding. If we could go sledding, we ended up with our feet in the sink after to warm them up . . . and hot coco right after. That hit the spot especially when it was cold. As I've gotten older I've learned to enjoy watching my siblings open gifts and giving gifts.  I also enjoy opening gifts. We also would make cookies and deliver them for people, just the classic. We'd do the nativity. 

- Rebecca 

My favorite Christmas memory is when my siblings and I would sleep by the tree. We would all be ready to go to sleep, but then someone would start an ornament fight, and we would throw these plastic icicle ornaments at each other till mom or dad came out and got mad at us 😆 but then after they left we’d keep going.

- BreAnna 

My favorite Christmas memory would have to be when I was eight years old. My family had moved to my Dad's hometown in Wyoming that year, and it was a cold winter. Despite the frigid temperatures, my parents decided to take us out to our family ranch on Christmas Eve for a fire. We made s'mores, read the nativity story and searched for Santa among the stars. Even though it was freezing, I don't remember the cold, just the magic.

- Alex