When I grew up, I enjoyed the Christmas season very much. My parents made it special for us. We lived in a farming town in Oxford, Idaho which had around 100 people in it. Every year my dad would turn the Christmas lights around our house on. He would go up the hill to cut down a tree for us. I loved to help decorate the tree. The icicles were especially fun to put on the tree. We always left the Christmas tree lights on all day on Christmas Day.
Each year we would pick a name out of a hat and buy a gift for that person. We were to spend $5.00 - $10.00 on a gift for that person. There was a store in Logan, Utah we loved to do our Christmas shopping in. It was called Grand Central. The store isn't there anymore. We also shopped for Christmas presents in the Sprouse Reitz and Kings stores. We had a great time shopping in these stores on Saturdays. There were several other people Christmas shopping in those stores too.

Some of the gifts we bought for each other were books, socks, movies on DVD's, and games. When I was eight or nine years old, I realized that Santa Claus was actually my mom and dad. I recognized their writing on the gift tags, but they made it special. It was fun trying to buy a present for the person whose name we drew. My mother would help us wrap our presents until we were old enough to do it ourselves.

Some of the board games we loved to play were Parchesi, Scrabble, Monopoli, and Aggravation. Sometimes we sat on the floor to play these games, and sometimes we sat on our card table. Some of my favorite gifts were coloring books, Barbie dolls, puzzles, dolls, a baking kit. I used to play the Old Maid card game a lot. It was called Easy Bake Baking Kit. I had favorite dolls, and I had a doll buggy I enjoyed too. My favorite doll I named Lisa. We received a sled and toboggan as a family gift. We enjoyed riding on them during our Christmas vacation from school. It was fun riding on them on the hills by our house. We usually received plenty of snow during the Christmas season. For this reason, we had fun making snowmen. I believe we made angels in the snow too.

I enjoyed entering the annual coloring contests sponsored by many of the local merchants. Some of these merchants were the Arctic Circle, OP Skaggs, U & I Furniture, Polar Bear, First Security Bank, and Utah Power and Light. One time I won a set of soccer boppers. I enjoyed reading all of the letters to Santa that were published in the Preston Citizen. I loved going with my dad to Preston and back to see the beautiful Christmas lights on people's houses. We sang Christmas songs together when we went to see all these beautiful lights. We loved to listen to all of the Christmas records we had too. Some of the songs on the records were: "The Day Before The Night Before Christmas,", "10,000 Santa Clauses,", "I'm Getting Nuttin For Christmas," "I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas,", and "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town." We also had records with the traditional Christmas songs: "The Little Drummer Boy,", "The Twelve Days Of Christmas," "Deck The Halls," "The Christmas Song," "Silver Bells," "Do You Hear What I Hear," and "We Three Kings Of Orient Are." I loved singing the words to each of these songs. I always laughed when I heard the song: "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer."

Every year at Christmas time, my parents bought a big box of oranges and chocolate clusters for us to enjoy. They gave us stockings filled with candy, peanuts, a candy cane, and an orange. We always used real stockings and hung them on the clothesline. We had favorite Christmas shows we would watch. "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" was one of them. On Christmas Day my dad would call upstairs and tell us that Santa Claus had come. We ate breakfast before we opened our gifts. Wayne picked one out first, then handed the gift to the person whose name was on the gift, then I picked a gift next, then so on. Desiree picked out a present last since she was the oldest. This was our tradition opening gifts every year at Christmas. One year our neighbor, Benny Kendall, brought a calf and gave it to us as a gift. We received a lot of goodies from ward members. I loved our ward cantatas and Christmas parties. The ward cantatas always brought the Spirit of our Heavenly Father into our hearts. One year our friend, Lisa Sears sang "Must Be Santa" at our ward Christmas party. We would enjoy playing the games we received all day on Christmas. One time we went to our Uncle Rhoud's and Aunt Sue's house for Christmas dinner. It was fun to tell our cousins what we received for Christmas. My mom always made a special dinner for us on Christmas Day. It was always very cold at our house at Christmas time. Sometimes it got below zero. In 1981/1982, our Christmas vacation was extended four days because of blizzard conditions. There was a lot of drifting on the roads from the heavy snow and strong winds which made it impossible for many to travel on the roads for many days.

Christmas has always been my favorite holiday since we celebrate Christ's birth at that time. My family still gets together every year to exchange gifts and eat a hoagie sandwich or a baked potato with all of the trimmings. Now it is easier to buy a gift for families than for individuals.