[Mary1955]

We had very little growing up. My dad always managed to get us a Christmas tree. My 6 siblings and myself had a wonderful time making decorations for the tree. Paper chains, twisted crepe paper streamers. Mum kept any nice paper she had for this. Our neighbours gave us any unused tinsel they did not need. We always thought the tree was beautiful. Christmas morning we'd wake to find the tree covered in balloons and Bertie Beetles . One each for us. I can still feel the excitement it brought us all. Not a big feast for lunch but we could not have cared less. We always had a great day.

 

[Lyn Giampietro]

My favourite memories of Christmas are of my darling father putting up our real Christmas tree and I got to decorate it. Also it was my mother’s birthday on Christmas Day so it was extra special although she used to spend the whole day in the kitchen preparing Christmas lunch for our family visitors . Every Christmas brings back wonderful memories of my darling parents I miss them everyday but I’m so blessed to be their daughter x

 

[Suzanne rose]

My Christmas was special for 48 years then it stopped. My husband cooked dinner for family all those years my job was to make things look Christmas's. Then he passed away. Time is not the same
hasnever been sameqq

And that's one reason I hate Xmas and don't celebrate it.

I love having spontaneous family get to gethers.

I always say Xmas can be a hard time for many . Financially, family loss, divorce

You should make new memories at this time. Do something different , if you can do a day trip or holiday or even spend the day watching movies.

I'm praying that you can get stronger and look at making new memories

 

[Jen Gardiner]

My First Christmas as a Diversional Therapist (Activity Co Ordinator) in Aged Care is probably one of my favourite memories of Christmas.
For our Craft Activity through November, I drew the 12 days of Christmas on an old white sheet and each oldie was given a square to "make their own'!
They had a WONDERFUL time painting and decorating their squares ... and I didn't tell them what I had planned .... I just said - "It will be a surprize ... but I need your help to put it all together".
When all the squares were painted and sparkling with glitter ... I collected them all up and took them home. Then the fun began! I put them all together as a quilt and was SO pleased with the result!!
I took it in the next week and hung it up for everyone to see ....
Watching their dear old faces as they recognized their own squares.... there were shy smiles, laughter, and yes even a few tears! I was so proud of them all! Like ...' a Mumma with her Chicks'!!!
Our local library heard about our beautiful quilt and asked if they could display it for Christmas! The Folks were SO proud of themselves! We lent it to the library for the lead up to Christmas and it was returned just before Christmas day so we could display it in the facility for all the family members to see.
It helped me to realize that being part of something bigger than yourself is wonderful ... no matter how old you are. And also, that age should be no barrier to fun and a feeling of accomplishment!

 

[Suzanne rose]

I no longer celebrate Xmas and only a couple of mine kids do.

I find as the years go on it's more about the shops and how much money they are making. It's all about retail spending each year and how sales are down or up.

In so many homes they don't ever acknowledge what Xmas is suppose to represent

If you research how Xmas began you would be shocked 2 words Satinallia and Pagan

What has Santa Claus got to do with Jesus !!

No I'm not a Jehovah witness but I am a Christian who researches.

My pet hates are as follows :

People who get into so much debt because they feel they need to supply gifts for their kids and family ...it's the stigma that comes with Xmas.

The suffering that people experience because they have lost a loved one and the loss is heightened at this time of year

Suffering parents and children because of divorce and usually a parent has their turn every 2nd year .

Parents who literally have no money and their kids go without , then on return to school they talk about what they got for Xmas.

Its a known fact that Suicide rate is the highest around Xmas and the new year

I celebrated Xmas every year spending thousands and yes I could afford it ! Then my eyes were opened.

I give thanks and celebrate the birth and crucifixion of Jesus every day

I give gifts to my family throughout the year because I find something I know they would love

I think we should rename it family day

 

[Ro-anne]

My best Christmas memories was the years that all my kids were under 5 opening their presents and seeing the joy on their faces.

 

[perritykity]

I used to love Christmas.. especially when my Mum was with us.. we would have Turkey, Ham, Chicken and Roast Veggies.. But then I lost her on the 22nd December 2002.. I tried to do the same with my son and Kids.. but he didn't want the Turkey and all the Trimmings.. and wasn't silent in telling me that he doesn't do Christmas, all he did was put the batteries in the kids toys and get drunk.. My Daughter Lives in Chinchilla and asked me to go out there for Christmas, so I did.. I loved being out there with my grandsons and my daughter and her house mate.. until they wanted to go the boxing day sales in Dolby.. I didn't have money to spend at the boxing day sales, so I stayed back and I said I would cook dinner for everyone.. Well I called her at 4.30 to find out where they were.. I got we are over at housemates parents place and will be home soon.. They still weren't back at 6.30- 6.45.. so I called again and said that she can go over there any time and day when I go home and I made the effort to come out for us to spend time together over the Christmas break.. They finally come home round 7.30.. I dish up the cold roast dinner and had to microwave the grandsons food.. after dinner I made them cleanup.. put everything in the dishwasher .. then they went in the bedrooms, loungeroom, posing and taking photos of each other.. I sat in the lounge with the boys until bedtime for them.. by this stage I had, had enough and when they finally went to bed I packed my car to go home.. I finally thought Daughter had gone to bed and made a move to exit and opened the door and daughter was walking down the hall and asked what was I doing? Well I was asked why was I going home.. I wander why? Anyway I had said goodbye to the boys that night.. There has been no contact with her for 5-6 years and she made it all about her and I was the one who made her Depressed.. She now has a daughter which I got to nurse her for 10 mins and then got told that that was I get and I will never get to see her again.. I was out there with the boys father and family.. I was devastated.. Anyway she called me a few weeks ago to invite me to her wedding... ceremony only and everyone was dressing formal.. so I am still looking for something to wear.. and get shoes as well.. this wedding is on the Sunshine coast 2 weeks before Christmas.. So when it come down to having Christmas I don't celebrate it at all.. I stay home on my own now..

 

[Bunny62]

Christmas Competition!​

We are so excited to launch our final competition of 2022! This one is extra special because it’s Christmas themed for the holidays AND we are drawing it in the first week of December, so the winner can use their $100 voucher to either Coles, Woolies, ALDI or IGA to help with the Christmas shopping!

Entering the competition is simple! All we want is to hear about your favourite Christmas memories. It can be any Christmas you remember. Maybe it was your childhood Christmas. Or maybe, it was last year’s Christmas. Whatever it was, we want to hear about it! The person with our favourite Christmas memory will win a $100 voucher to the supermarket of their choice (Coles, Woolies, ALDI or IGA!)

So get storytelling members; it’s time to get into the Christmas Spirit!

View attachment 8129​

My favourite Christmas memory e er was in 1998 when my now partner of 24 years and myself happened to be at the same party and after chatting most of the evening I knew that there was something in the air but him being him had no idea about the ways of women and didn't know if he had any chance of having a date or if I even liked him so at midnight he kissed me and said Merry Christmas Kate and my knees went weak and I responded with do you mind if I have another one of them and well 24 years later here we are

 

[Dippy53]

When I was about 7 or 8 I badly wanted a basketball for Christmas. Every year we had visitors from Perth- in those days about 2 hrs travelling time- after their visit they would continue their journey further south. This particular year they turned up early and we hadn't even opened our gifts so we had to wait until they left. What torture! I could see my gift sitting there all wrapped up. It was round. This could mean that it was only 1 thing, my basketball. They stayed for what seemed like hours. They finally left. AT LAST! MY BASKETBALL

 

[Mathera]

Christmas memories, so many in my 75 years. One of my favourites was watching the building excitement of my children and hiding their presents before Christmas Eve. As they grew older they would try desperately to find where the presents were hidden so I-had to get smarter!. The joy of our small family being together and relishing the day, the presents ,my average attempts at Christmas lunch and the fun of enjoying each other. Traditions that my 2 children carry on with their own families now!

 

[Big sister]

Growing up in Scotland Christchurch was magical but my favourite was when my grandson told us Santa comes and there's all snow!..He couldn't understand not in Australia so several cans of fake snow later and my garden was a wintetland
But boy was it hard to get off
The snow footprints to the door were the most difficult but the joy on his face was worth everything

 

[Suepermunn]

Christmas Competition!​

We are so excited to launch our final competition of 2022! This one is extra special because it’s Christmas themed for the holidays AND we are drawing it in the first week of December, so the winner can use their $100 voucher to either Coles, Woolies, ALDI or IGA to help with the Christmas shopping!

Entering the competition is simple! All we want is to hear about your favourite Christmas memories. It can be any Christmas you remember. Maybe it was your childhood Christmas. Or maybe, it was last year’s Christmas. Whatever it was, we want to hear about it! The person with our favourite Christmas memory will win a $100 voucher to the supermarket of their choice (Coles, Woolies, ALDI or IGA!)

So get storytelling members; it’s time to get into the Christmas Spirit!

View attachment 8129​

I remember staying at my Grandparents place and getting up on Christmas morning and peeking through the crack in the lounge room door to try to see our presents. My parents would always sleep in (or it felt like it) and my sister and I would be dying to get into the lounge and open our presents.

 

[Springlover05]

Living on a farm one year on Christmas Eve my parents were cutting hay and my sisters and I had to roll the bales into heaps, getting late we were worried that Santa wouldn't come because we weren't in bed early luckily we were sale to stop and go home to bed. Santa came with presents which we got to see the next morning. Also mum and dad had to milk the cows in the morning so we were allowed to open the presents left on the end of our beds but not allowed to open the presents left under the tree. My favourite Christmases was watching my son open his presents when he was little and his excitement that Santa had been. The saddest Christmas was the year my father had passed away and not having him there for Christmas Christmas just wasn't the same as he used to hand out the presents to everyone from under the tree and just missing him so much not being with us.

 

[Cyberchook]

Another memorable Xmas. My then 6 years old daughter and I had just moved to New Zealand.
I was not able to fly to Australia, but able to send her to join the big family celebrations.
Everyone seemed pleased with that decision.

I knew few people and only one Australian woman I had met casually who showed me how she would write perfectly straight lines using a pencil lying on the page as a guide. How one remembers simple things.

My main contact there was a Jewish family and as you know they do not celebrate Xmas Day as Christians.
So, I was alone after a drink with the Australian lady and her friend who had other plans.

We were living in an old romantic timber cottage with stained glass and leadlight windows, bumble bees, and an overgrown garden, full of magical plants and a huge rear that was not a garden but more a little touch of the wilderness, with a huge tall, solo magnificent pine tree near the back boundary.

I made my way through to sit under the pine tree and listened to the sounds of nature as well as the people next door playing tennis on their tennis court. It was like two worlds one in each ear.
Echos and laughter and the pock sound of tennis balls as they were hit and flew across the court to be returned with another whack.

But in my own world, I looked up and thought, I have the best Xmas tree ever watching all these many different birds all perched chirping on the high branches, the prettiest baubles one could imagine.
I rather enjoyed that lone Xmas. It was different, yet still filled with joy.

 

[Cyberchook]

My mum loved to make a Christmas pudding, cooking it weeks before Christmas and letting it hang so that the flavours could develop properly. She had diligently saved a purse-full of sixpences at the beginning of decimal currency, so that she could hide them in the pudding, and would swap them out on Christmas day.

Once or twice there were…issues though. There was the year that Mum had hung the pudding in Dad's shed, and the dog found it and ate the lot. You wouldn't think a corgi could fit a whole Christmas pudding in there. When Mum put those sixpences into the pudding, she would count so that she knew how many there should be. She got back every single sixpence that the dog ate and boiled them for a very long time on the stove. She swears she never used those ones again, but…how would we know?

Then, having learnt her lesson with hanging the pudding where the dog could get to it, the next year she hung it up high, in the laundry. Laundries are damp places, it went mouldy.

The year Mum hung the pudding in the kitchen, all seemed to be going well. It was far too high for the dog to reach, and the kitchen was open-plan, nice and airy. But something seemed odd about the pudding. It looked a little flat on one side, and kind of sunken at the top. Mum poked a finger against the cloth and it sunk beneath her touch. She lifted it down and it seemed lighter than it should be. She opened the cloth and an enormous, fat mouse took one look at her from the middle of the hollowed-out pudding and ran for its life.

Despite the setbacks, there was always a delicious, home-cooked pudding on our Christmas table and everyone found room for a slice, despite having eaten far too much. Nana was small as a bird, but after eating up her slice of pudding, complained that she hadn't found sixpence and would have to have another slice. I watched as Mum cut the next slice and we both exchanged a glance as we saw the shiny side of a sixpence going into the piece for Nana's plate. Five minutes later another complaint from Nana: "No sixpence!" Mum never did get that one back.

A wonderful story with so many real memories. Did you put sixpences in your puddings and make sure the dog was well out of the way? We used three penny bits and silver pudding tokens and had no dog. But we had our own crazy happenings too. Don't we all, one way or another?

 

[Leonard Hall]

I am 85 now but when I was a child I lived in East London in a town called Walthamstow, where there is a one mile long street market in the High Street and I would enjoy walking down there on Christmas eve with my parents when all the stall holders were selling off their wares cheaper so that they could go home to their families. The street would be illuminated by the gas lights on the stalls and the light would be a yellow colour and the vendors would be enticing the eager last minute buyers with their spruking and sometimes it would be snowing and always very cold and looking back it was like a scene out of a Dickens story.

 

[Leonard Hall]

Christmas Competition!​

We are so excited to launch our final competition of 2022! This one is extra special because it’s Christmas themed for the holidays AND we are drawing it in the first week of December, so the winner can use their $100 voucher to either Coles, Woolies, ALDI or IGA to help with the Christmas shopping!

Entering the competition is simple! All we want is to hear about your favourite Christmas memories. It can be any Christmas you remember. Maybe it was your childhood Christmas. Or maybe, it was last year’s Christmas. Whatever it was, we want to hear about it! The person with our favourite Christmas memory will win a $100 voucher to the supermarket of their choice (Coles, Woolies, ALDI or IGA!)

So get storytelling members; it’s time to get into the Christmas Spirit!

View attachment 8129​

 

[Leonard Hall]

I am 85 now but when I was a child I lived in East London in a town called Walthamstow, where there is a one mile long street market in the High Street and I would enjoy walking down there on Christmas eve with my parents when all the stall holders were selling off their wares cheaper so that they could go home to their families. The street would be illuminated by the gas lights on the stalls and the light would be a yellow colour and the vendors would be enticing the eager last minute buyers with their spruking and sometimes it would be snowing and always very cold and looking back it was like a scene out of a Dickens story.

 

[Jay44]

It was Christmas eve, 1952, I was just 8 years old and our family was very excited to be setting out on the nearly 500 km drive from Mungindi to Scone in our 1936 Pontiac. We were to spend Christmas with my mother's sister and family and our favourite cousin. Not far into the trip, we drove over a bridge and on the other side, the car crashed down into an enormous pothole and the car came to a sudden stop. We were lucky to be found by another traveller who drove us into a nearby township of Warialda. The local garage owner retrieved our car and told us that the front axle was broken and it would be some time before a replacement part could be ordered in. This very kind family offered to accommodate we females and I don't know where my Dad slept that night. When we woke on Christmas morning, at the bottom of our bed was a Coronation Money box which had been filled with jellies, but because the weather was so hot, all the jellies had melted into each other and there was this variegated, sticky mass!!

Somehow, there was a bus service from Warialda to somewhere near Scone, so we all hopped on it, to spend our Christmas day. I remember it being very hot and dusty and I remember Mum desperately wanting a cup of tea! I think arrowroot biscuits and water made up our Christmas lunch and I don't remember much else about the trip, except that it was very long and we were all very tired and dirty by the time we reached Scone.
I have no recollection of opening presents, but I'm sure we enjoyed the time with our rels.

About a week later, Dad hitch-hiked back to Warialda to pick up our old "Chiefie Bomb".

That was my most memorable Christmas.

 

[Cyberchook]

A cameo memory was when my 3-year-old grandson and I were lying in my bed he was so excited he could not sleep in his own room, so came to mine as he always did when I visited. We lay there giggling and chatting for hours it seemed and suddenly heard the hall clock chime midnight. We stopped and gasped stared at each other and heard a scratching sound on the roof (thanks Possom)I said: "QUICK go to sleep or he might miss you if he sees you awake."
Never did I see a child stop talking and drop to sleep so quickly.