What was your best Christmas ever?

Fuck off, OP.

1965. I got a Boris Badenov talking puppet.

(Boris Badenov from Rocky and Bullwinkle)

I got a Rocky and His Friends game one year, r2, and also Colorforms.

I got the fabulous SPY DETECTOR game in the early 1960s. Suspects cards and lie detector, an update from the 1960s Lie Detector game. I bought one off eBay ten years ago for my nieces for $50. It made their parents mad because they wouldn't stop playing it all Christmas Day.

Come from a dysfunctional home, R1?

My mother would withdraw from everyone and become solemn during the holidays- and there was always a tone of melancholy and pessimism. We never really had any celebration and gifts were mere trinkets, food or clothes. She shuffled us off to my aunt and we’d celebrate there,

but it always felt like she was avoiding it and I really resented that our Christmases didn’t look anything like others and I always blamed my mother. We had a lot of angry fights about it.

Then in my 50’s I found out through a long lost relative that her mother had slipped into a coma just before thanksgiving and died right after new year’s.

My mom was 8 years old and suddenly everything made sense.

R6 again, I know, what a bummer response, Mary!

The best Christmas was with my new husband years ago and he wiped all the melancholy away. I’ve also learned how to appreciate my mother not for what she didn’t do-

But that she was doing the best with what she had.

This year because we're using COVID to avoid all but immediate family and will hang out with vaccinated and boosted friends for a few days. Plus my company decided to shut down for a week and big holiday bonuses are back this year. Cue movie marathons, good wine and food, naps, and fires since we moved to a house with a working fireplace for the first time.