TOGETHER THIS WINTER

It's the most wonderful time of the year, and our team wanted to share some of our childhood stories.

Kim Chi, Age 6

So Mariah Carey's #alliwantforchristmas is the greatest Christmas/holiday album of all time. It's also the first cassette tape I ever owned. I remember, I didn't realize I was buying a Christmas album.
Growing up, I loved Christmas because the movies made it so magical - hot cocoa, christmas lights, snowy days off from school and Christmas presents. In real life though, my parents were refugees, new to America and they didn't really understand the holiday. I learned about it through movies and in school, and I would beg them every year if we could get a tree. They would oblige with a four foot tree, string lights, some ornaments, and candy canes. The lights and the candy canes were my favorite part. I was an only child, so the holidays were always kind of lonely. Sometimes I would come downstairs late at night and just sit and look at the lights on the tree, and think, someday, I'd have a big family, and it wouldn't feel so lonely anymore. I guess we never really took photos with the tree. This photo is actually the only one I could procure of me with a Christmas tree - it's me and a fake backdrop, taken at the family photo center at the old Montgomery Ward.

Liz, Age 5

My mom called our donated 4ft fake Christmas tree and ornaments from the Salvation Army, very lucky. She said, “no matter how hard we struggle, my little tree always has presents under it for my children.” My mom’s love for the spirit of Christmas passed on to us, I always used to get so happy pulling out our small tree and reusing the same random donated ornaments every Christmas. Year after year, I would see how much I grew by comparing my height with the tree, until finally one year I started towering over it like my older siblings. After 14 years and 14 Christmas’ the donated tree finally broke, and my siblings and I finally got my mom her first real Christmas tree; but to this day, we still decorate my mom’s christmas tree with the same random decorations that was donated to us from the Salvation Army long ago.

Noel, Age 8

Growing up, I was always so embarrassed that we would be the first family on the block with our Christmas lights up--sometimes before Thanksgiving--and the last to take them down. I recently learned that the Christmas season starts as early as September in the Philippines (the 'Ber months), and ends even later. Now I find myself quite envious. Who doesn't want a longer season of giving and kindness and lights?

Lauren, Adult

I come from a large, close knit family and while we have grown up, gotten married, had kids and some even moved away, very little can keep us from our yearly tradition of making sausage bread (a tradition going back several generations and it’s a huge operation!) and a little friendly competition with gingerbread house creations (peep that light house gingerbread house in the top photo on the right, pretty sure that was a winner!).

Ivana, Age 6. Ted, Age 2.

Growing up I would watch all these Christmas films which fed my imagination of what Christmas should be like- presents, lights, cookies, hot cocoa and most importantly snow. There was always snow. And for some reason the snow is what stuck out the most- I really wanted it to snow on Christmas. I would fantasize what it would be like to wake up on Christmas morning with snow. So, every year I would ask Santa for snow. And year after year, nothing (It might have had to do with the fact that we lived out West like Hawaii but what did I know - I was just a kid). Years later after moving to the East coast, my brother and I woke up one morning and it was snowing unexpectedly! We ran out screaming, jumping, and dancing! We reached for the sky to touch the snow, laid on the ground to watch the snow fall and felt the snowflakes melt in our hands and our cheeks. And even though it wasn’t Christmas morning, it definitely felt like it was, cuz it felt like magic.

Sam, Age 4. Sam's Brother, Age 2.

As I get older, it gets harder to remember what my younger days were like. Yet whenever I do think back to the holidays, I always remember the warm and cozy feelings. My family never lived in large houses, but I was amazed by how many people we could stuff into our little abode. I think my fondness of gatherings stemmed from my parents, who would always be so generous to host anyone. I remember one Christmas Eve we had a party, and a loud knock came from the front door. Outside stood one of my uncles dressed in a Santa Clause suit! He walked in with a trash bag full of gifts and handed them out at random because he was having too much fun to be bothered to read the names on the front. Now that I'm older I understand the feeling of wanting to put a smile on a kid's face, and cannot wait for the chance to do so this season .