I want to hear some good, uplifting Christmas stories!!!!

We have all been bombarded with bad news the last few weeks it seems. I would like all of us to think of times gone by and tell some positive Christmas stories.

I posted a few years ago about racing home from Vietnam for Christmas in 1969.
(Original post: http://ytforums.ytmag.com/viewtopic.php?t=717297&highlight=)

Redtom posted this about one of his Christmases as a child:

"Not nearly as touching but in about 1970 when I was a kid 8 or so, my mom went to work. We weren't too poor but not rich by any means. Remember it was still kinda odd for "moms" to have jobs and on top of it she started in the fall when school started and worked at Montgomery Wards so she was gone most nights when a kid has questions about homework and school and could use his mom. Well, Christmas eve came and of course she had to work and it got real late but she finally got home a couple hours late. Remember, back then, there were no wally's etc open all night. Everything closed on Christmas eve and stayed closed til 26th. What happened was at 9pm when they closed, a poor lady came in the store. they tried to shoo her out but she told them she had finally gotten paid that night and this was the first money she had gotten and had no presents for her kids. So the staff an mgr kept the store open and let her shop till she had what she wanted, checked her out, and closed up. After my mom told us kids about that I didn't miss my mom so much for working and realized how lucky I was.

Then Case e posted this one about his Mother:

" Well here is mine... This is a "gift" I gave my kids this year. Grandma,(my mother) passed away this year and the kids (me too) were kinda missing her. See at Christmas time mom loved to dress up as Mrs Clause and go to schools and nursing homes and read to the kids and residence and bring some cheer. A couple of Christmases ago at our family get together mom was in her suit and had all the grandkids gathered around her as she read the Night Before Christmas under the Christmas tree. No one paid much attention as I quietly video recorded it. Tonight before putting the kids to bed I gathered them in the living room (not telling them what was up) and told my little girl to press play. Needless to say it was nice having Grandma to read to them again. Any way MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL."

These are what I enjoy reading and I think they show the real meaning of what is great about Christmas and this great country of ours here.

So let us hear your stories. Even one about any one you knew/know. It does not have to even be a big deal type of story. It can just be the first time you had kids of your own or the grand kids over. Anything that is uplifting. We have a too much negative stories from the main stream media so lets post of better times/things.

Well, not a huge story line here, but a few years back my brother wanted
to bring his wife's mother up here to Michigan from Padukah, (sp) KY.
Couldn't afford the air fare, but my middle sister had some vacation time coming.
So he paid for the gas money and she drove from here down there, picked
up his MIL, and brought her back on Christmas day just in time to open gifts.
After they were all done crying over it of course.
It was a nice thought, a nice gift, and a nice Christmas.
I think the only one that didn't know about it was his wife. LOL

Seller, Many years ago and about a half a world away, this guy and his pregnant wife stopped at an inn, that was full... LOL sorry coudn't resist!
How much snow did you end up with? ...or is it still falling?

Ended up with 5-6 inch of snow. The real problem has been the high winds today. They are supposed to slow down Friday. Then we can clear the drifts.

As far as the guy with the pregnant wife. I was thinking just a little more recent than that one. LOL

Wind sucks! At least ya can shovel and push snow...can't do schnit with wind 'cept wait for it to quit! Gettin' some wind here in NY with a tad bit of sleet.

In the mid-80's, both of our kids were in college and we gave them each one of those tooth paste "pumps" for Christmas that were on the market that year.

We told the kids that was all that we could afford this year. Both seemed to accept that - except about 4 minutes later son noticed that the cardboard insert in the bottom was not in place quite right. So he pulled it out and found a couple $100 bills stuffed in the bottom of the tube. Daughter grabbed her tube real fast and took out the bottom cardboard to get her bills out. Smiles all around. Mom & Dad had fooled them, but just for a few minutes.

"Wind sucks!" , Sorry,but wind does NOT suck, it BLOWS!

When I was growing up it was always a big deal for all the family to come home. We lived on the family farm and they(Aunts and Uncles and Cousins)had to pass our house before they got to our Grandparents. I would sit at the window and let Dad and Mom know when one of them went by. Most of My cousins were boys and would play together and when we were older we would hunt on the farm. A lot of fun. We always had to have all our work done to take the week off. One year we were late getting our wheat planted. We worked till we got done and got home about 12 oclock Christmas eve. Mom was ticked but we were finished.
Then there was the Christmas eve of 93 when I buried My first Wife.
Ron

My favorite christmas story was the one my mom always told. I wish I could do it justice, but it's one of those simple stories that you can only really appreciate hearing it from the source.

When she was about six or seven, her father was off fighting somewhere in the pacific. She missed him terribly, and was too young to understand why she had to spend another christmas without him.

She wrote a letter to santa telling him she didn't want any toys for christmas, all she wanted was her daddy back.

She always went to sleep wrapped up in one of his long navy coats, praying he'd return.

On christmas eve, she fell to sleep under the christmas tree, wrapped up in his coat.

She woke up very early on christmas morning, it was still dark outside, but in the light of the christmas tree she saw a huge box all wrapped with a big bow.

She saw her name on it, and she couldn't resist the urge to open it. She pulled at it, found out it was open on the bottom and she lifted it up to find her father sitting inside, home from the war.

Till the day she passed away you couldn't argue with her that there was no santa.

When my kids were little,(they are in their late 40s now) and they would ask where Santa lived I would tell them he lived at the north pole. Well, where is that they would ask. I would point north and tell them it is as far as you can walk and one more step. Got the oldest one a tubsy doll when she was 6. She opened it up Christmas morning. We put batteries in it and lo and behold it wouldn't work. The following afternoon I started out the door with the doll and she asked me where I was going. I told her I was going to see Santa. I drove all around looking for another doll and finally found one at a Western Auto store in the window. It was more than I paid for the one I had and I didn't have the money to pay the difference but the lady exchanged it anyway. I like to believe there are people like her still around.

Back in 1966, I was on ambulance duty with the fire company, and it was snowing hard. We were alerted for an emergency transport of a pregnant woman to the hospital at the old Bainbridge Naval Training Center Hospital. We had to get the county to plow a path into a small old milk house where the family resided. We used a 4 wheel drive brush truck to break a path back into the farm. She was having her 12th kid. 6 had survived- 3 boys and 3 girls. She was diabetic, had a kidney infection and was 7 months pregnant. With the weather conditions outside, we went for the local doctor, and he looked at her and told us that she would be dead by morning if we didn't get her to a hospital that night. Three of us in the group said we'd try, and headed east with her in the ambulance. About fifteen miles from home, the engine sputtered and died. This happened numerous times, all the way across the Conowingo dam on the Susquehanna river. Water Witch VFD from Port Deposit near Bainbridge NTC met us about five miles above town and transported her the rest of the way. We went on to Water Witch's station, and worked on the ambo, which we found had a plugged fuel filter. The local garage got us a new one at two in the morning, and we headed back home in the blizzard. The next morning, the local Lions club filled two baskets with food, and my mother cooked a ham that was included for the family. A neighbor of the Doc's asked me to stop when we took the basket over. He reached into his wallet and pulled ou a fifty dollar bill, put it into an envelope, and wrote "Merry Christmas, from a Neighbor". At that time, $50 was about my average take home pay for a 40 hour week. My brother and I delivered the baskets to the husband and the kids, which he asked us to put on the table, and then closed the door behind us. The girls each had a cheap doll, and the boys a plastic toy pistol. Jim and I didn't get a 'Thanks' or even a 'Kiss my ask'. I never found out how she made out, nor anything about the rest of the family. I did have a run in with him the next summer. I had been working on a cable all morning, and just after lunch he came around the corner of the building I had been working behind. He was operating a hand tamper for a blacktop crew. He told me to get my truck the hail out of their way so they could blacktop the lane. They finished where I was the next day....