What are some of your best Christmas memories that didn't involve spending money?

I never knew the meaning of Christmas until I got married. My wife and I never give each other presents. We do however give presents to our daughters and our relatives but when we got married she asked that I never give her presents on birthdays, anniversaries and holidays and be good to her all year round. This works for us.

electronics games: $600
real christmas tree: $80
groceries for christmas morning breakfast: $100
kids faces: priceless

but seriously, true spirit if christmas is the family unit or structure. it’s when you go out together and pick the tree or spontaneously jump in the snow to make snow angels. it’s lighting a fire and watching “it’s a wonderful life” with the whole family or gathering around a piano or guitar (NO TV) singing christmas carols. these are times some families just dont slow down for.

The first time I got to wake up where my son and daughter could enjoy the experience.

The second best was,
When my family, and my grandma and grandpa were downstairs on christmas eve with a table full of snacks and I saw “It’s a Wonderful Life” for the first time”. It was great.

We were generally poor growing up, though I remember one particular Christmas being particularly tight. For a couple of days leading up to Christmas, things would go missing. Come Christmas morning we found out why. My mother had wrapped them up and put them under the Christmas tree. We couldn’t afford to buy anything new, but she wanted us to have something to open on Christmas.

It was incredibly silly, but also incredibly sweet.

Self pleasure.

Every Christmas Eve we would go out on a drive looking at the lights set up in people’s yards. Somewhere along the line my Dad would “see” Santa and we would get all excited and sometimes we even saw him flying across the sky. Since Santa was leaving it meant it was time to go home and sure enough Santa had been there.

The best year was when I was 13 and my Dad took me aside and explained what happened and I became a part of Santsa’s visit.

I refer you to my answer to this question. Of course without some pre-planning and the desire to have a HUGE family, this is not going to happen every year.

Waking up to a pristine Christmas snow.

Singing Christmas carols on the way home from Christmas Eve service.

Making snow ice cream (pre acid rain and pollution).

Hot chocolate after coming inside from a snowball fight.

Making decorations and hanging them on the tree. you can make amazing ones from paper, ribbon, egg shells, popcorn and cranberries, shells and more.

Making Christmas cookies and decorating them with Mom, and then eating them.

When I was in 2nd or 3rd grade it snowed in Houston -which almost never happens. About an inch stuck on the ground. My dad and the next door neighbor’s dad decided they were going to make a snowman and enter pictures of it into a contest. The kids were all into helping for a while and then we got tired and went inside for hot cocoa and popcorn. We watched through the window for hours while the dads worked on this thing. The “snow bear” ended up being about 7 feet tall with a goofy smile. It was pretty cool to see it and how long it lasted, but it was mostly just funny to see the dads playing in the snow longer than any of the kids.

I’m with Supermouse on the referral to the previous question.

Snow forts in the front yard was my favorite Christmas memory.

But you could also get some cement and small plastic molds, then decorate them with cheap glass beads or shiny rocks and crystals. Have everyone tell a strony about their favorite present and what they did with it. Make a collage out of some old photos that you don’t mind cutting.

The idea is to spend some time together, no matter what you are doing.

Playing drunkin Dominios!

When my boys were growing up, we made a kind of party out of decorating the tree. We picked a Saturday between the first and second week of Dec. and invited their grandparents to come for supper. After the meal, we all worked together to decorate the tree, and then sat around with cookies and hot chocolate to admire it. The adults all told stories about when they were young. The boys loved it!

When I was nine, we went Christmas Caroling with our neighbors and some friends. We baked cookies, packaged them up and went out on our way. We actually had a great time – it was so much fun. Along the way, some people joined us, too. I think about it every year and remember how fun it was and all the people that either invited us in or gave us hot cocoa or hot tea.

A snowball fight with my uncle. The other kids joined on the other side of the fence. A snowball fight became a war! It was 386-Doom-era, but the snow fell freely.

When all 6 kids still lived in the house we used to all sleep in the same room Christmas Eve night. We acted like it was such a drag at first, but we always stayed up all hours of the night just laughing and getting mad at my brother for passing gas. (He was the only boy. Ha.) When we woke up on Christmas we were always so goofy and getting along while we shared inside jokes from the night before. We opened a few presents at our house, then we would always go to Grandma’s house which was a good 45 minute drive. The whole way there we would sing Christmas Carols. My grandma would turn the sprinklers on the night before, so when we pulled up everything was covered in icicles. It was beautiful. Christmas time is my favorite and I have a lot of amazing memories that don’t involve money. My family was always scraping up for money but as far as brothers and sisters go, we were never short on love.

@krose-awesome!!

Serving donations & food @ a bank in Berkeley, CA.
Then sitting down and sharing stories (some heart wrenching) awaiting the secret Santa U-Haul to arrive

When my parents first separated, my dad forced my mom, sister, and me out of the house. We moved in with my grandmother, hoping it would only last a couple of months, but when December rolled around, and my hopes of moving back home in time to decorate for Christmas were in vain, my grandmother and great aunt combined their frequent flier miles to help my mom pay for tickets for the three of us (and my grandmother came along as well) to spend Christmas in L.A. with my uncle and aunt. Presents were scarce that year, but for the first time in my life, I was able to just sit around in my pajamas with close family, delighting in the anecdotes they told and the laughter we shared. My uncle prepared an exquisite meal and we watched A Christmas Story over and over again. At the time, I was 14, and during that year, I came to the realization that materials and finances possess no dictation over one’s happiness. That was the best Christmas gift I’ve ever been given.

we grew up very poor, so money was rarely involved anyway. I loved going out and riding around other neighborhoods and looking at the lights and decorations. I loved Charlie Brown Christmas, The Grench Who Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman. I loved all the decorations in the malls and on the streetlights through town. I loved the music. I loved believing in Santa Clause and falling asleep at the window in hopes of catching him landing on our roof. I loved Christmas then and love it even more now because I love Jesus Christ so much.

Amazing answer, XrayGirl.

Christmas has become too much about money and buying gifts for children that they might play with for a month. My favorite Christmas was right after 911. My parents asked if we wanted gifts that christmas. My 4 siblings and I talked it over and decided we didn’t want any presents. our parents asked what we wanted to do instead and we said we would like to donate whatever money they were planning on spending on us to go to the children of 911 that might not get anything for christmas. we weren’t a poor family so we didn’t feel like there way anything we needed so our parents doubled the amount. There were children out there that needed a christmas much more than we did. Christmas is about giving not receiving.

Decorating the tree has always been special to me. The ornaments have been collected slowly over many years, and now they have a lot of history and memories in them. Seeing them come out again, handling them, and arranging them is a wonderful part of the preparations for me. Reusing familiar decorations means more than anything new.

Baking and cooking are a family affair, too, and everyone pitches in. That time of working together is always great. We also have a family Christmas Eve ceremony that involves some reading aloud and some other long-established fun and serious elements of recognizing the holiday.

It’s the traditions and customs we follow together as a family, the repetition of the familiar and memory-laden rituals that mean the most to me. They matter more than anything that might be under the tree.

I remember one Christmas when I was probably 5 or 6 and we got a lot of wet snow in Seattle. My dad, sister and I built this snow ramp in the backyard. Once it was done my sister and I were sliding down it on cardboard and my mom had to get in on the fun. She climbed up, sat on the cardboard and instead of going down the right way she went down the backside.

Find a local church, go to their Christmas service and sing a lot of carols. Always works for me.