My childhood in many ways was Norman Rockwell-ish. Does anyone even know what that means anymore? If you don’t, Google it. My mom also had an ideal childhood and wanted to recreate that for my brother and me — and even my dad. He grew up on a farm and they never had a lot, which was very different than my mom’s upbringing.

Christmas began at our house the day after Thanksgiving and it was a marathon and not a sprint. I have never seen someone get so much joy from lugging out the Christmas stuff (20+ boxes labeled and listed on a sheet in order of removal from the basement or attic) as my mom did. Many people say it is someone’s favorite time of year, but my mom put others to shame.

As a child there are a few things I remember about Christmas. My mom and my Aunt Roxann made advent calendars for the their three kids (myself, my brother and cousin). It was a large felt Christmas tree with 24 red pockets. Each pocket had a Hershey kiss and an ornament that went on the felt tree. Each night there was a book to read that was somehow related to the ornament that went on the tree.

Every year my mom would read Christmas bedtime stories. We still have those books. My favorite was Santa Mouse. I can still hear my mom’s voice as she read it to me. Her voice was always so animated. I have somehow misplaced my Santa Mouse book, between many moves I guess, somewhere between my adulthood and my son’s childhood.

Our family always opened gifts on Christmas Eve. My mom’s family always did that, which worked well with my dad because he is VERY German and apparently it was a German tradition to open packages on Christmas Eve. We always had family dinner, mostly appetizer-ish things. Then on Christmas Day we had Santa gifts and stockings to open. My mom did this well into my 40’s, even for the last Christmas she was alive.

Mom loved making Christmas candy and cakes (my dad loved fruitcake cookies). Does anyone really like fruitcake? My dad sure did and he was the only one who ate it in our family but Mom made it every year along with peanut butter wheels (not made with potatoes), bourbon balls, peanut butter balls, Christmas cookies made with her antique cookie press, and sausage balls and cheese balls.

It probably isn’t as big of a deal now, but at the time we had something virtually no one else had — Santa Came to our house to visit before Christmas, gave us a gift and hung out with us for awhile (you know, because he wasn’t busy or anything). Later I found out Santa was actually a family friend who would dress up every year and go and visit friends’ children and spend some time with them. He really did an amazing job and even when I was old enough to know what was going on, I still looked forward to it every year.

I have ornaments that were on my great-grandparents’ and grandparents’ Christmas trees. Mom was awesome about that kind of stuff. She wrote on the original boxes who these ornaments belonged to and how old they were. She would tell me she used to have the most wonderful time decorating the tree and wrapping presents with her grandmother. It was one of the main reasons she loved wrapping Christmas presents.

I can’t tell you how many hours my mom spent wrapping presents each year, but it was an ongoing event. She shopped throughout the year because she wanted to be done to have several weeks to wrap each gift. And I can’t even begin to tell you how beautiful these gifts were. She would drag everything out every year and a whole room would be dedicated to gift-wrapping, as though we were elves gearing up for the big haul.

I could go on and on…maybe I will do this every Christmas and share what our Christmases were like growing up. My mom worked so hard to make them memorable for us and I’m so glad she did. She took a lot of light-hearted ribbing for it, but especially now that she’s gone I appreciate everything she did each year so much more.