Dad Christmas Stories

The heart of a father is the masterpiece of nature. ~Abbe Prevost

I sent out a newsletter last week. If you didn’t get it and would like to read my news, let me know and I’ll send one out to you.

In the newsletter, I invited readers to share a Christmas story. I mentioned it could be about a special gift, maybe good, maybe not so good, but I’ve been getting other Christmas stories too. I always love reading the stories you share with me. I haven’t had time to get all the messages read yet, but in the ones I have read, several readers shared dad stories. So I’m sharing a few of them forward to you. Oh, and if you sent me a story, I will read it soon and respond to your message.

First we hear from Prudence who tells about that first Christmas without her dad but how he still made the Christmas special.

My Dad passed away two weeks before Christmas in 1996. He always did his shopping on Christmas Eve and not before so we assumed there were no gifts from him that year. As we started going through his house we found, packed away in a closet, a stuffed animal for our five year old son and a gift certificate to a nearby outlet store. We used the gift certificate to buy a set of Christmas dishes which we still use every Christmas. They always make me think of him and how, somehow or other, he knew he wouldn’t be with us for Christmas so he shopped ahead that year.

What a great way to remember your dad every year, Prudence.

Nancy tells about a special gift from her dad. Her dad was like many dads and generally left the shopping up to her mom. But then one year…

I worked in the toy department of a local store when I was in high school. One year I remember a little teddy bear that I fell in love with. I would always hide him under a pile of stuffed animals. The day I couldn’t find him broke my heart. It was a very joyful Christmas when I found him under the tree wrapped up from my father. What made it even more special was the fact that my father rarely bought us gifts. That was my mother’s domain.

What a great surprise, Nancy. I can just see you hiding that bear so nobody else would buy it and then your dad sneaked in and bought it without you knowing. Fun story.

Renee has an especially sweet Christmas memory of her dad.

My story is not about a gift, but one of a memory of my dad. Every Christmas Eve night my dad would make homemade fudge with Hershey’s cocoa, no marshmallow cream. He would stand in front of the kitchen sink and shake the pink Tupperware bowl with the dry ingredients (like one of those arm shaking exercise machines). Then he would stir and stir the dry mixture with the wet ingredients in our old black iron skillet till the mixture formed a ball when dropped in water. Oh my, the deliciousness of the end fudge…nothing beats the melt in the mouth candy! But most of all I cherish those memories of my dad.

After reading that, I’m ready to go stir up some homemade chocolate candy. Yum!

While a lot of dads didn’t do much of the Christmas shopping, many of them were the ones working late on Christmas Eve to assemble those bicycles or dollhouses or whatever Santa was bringing. Linda shares a Santa memory.

One of my favorite Christmas memories is when I was still small enough to believe in Santa. Since we didn’t have a chimney Santa had to come in the back door. I was already in bed but still wide awake and I heard the back door open and a lot of noise in the living room. Then I heard the back door close again. I just knew it was Santa! The next morning there was the bicycle I had wanted sitting in the living room. Several years later I mentioned this to Mom and she said they had kept the bicycle at the next door neighbor’s house and all that noise was her and Daddy. Makes me smile all these many years later.

I’m smiling too, Linda.

I hope you enjoyed these Christmas Dad memories as much as I did. My dad let Mom do most of the shopping at Christmastime, but sometimes he would come in with something he had found who knew where. Once it was a record player that was just the inner part without a case, but it played records. My sisters and I were very happy with that gift and it worked for years. He would bring in candy occasionally too. Sometimes it was that hard candy that was all sorts of shapes and flavors. Some good. Some not so good. Or he did sometimes really make us frown by bringing home chocolate covered raisins. Give me a chocolate covered peanut and I ‘m happy, but chocolate covered raisins are very disappointing. Then somehow, my mother got him to haul in the desk I begged for because a writer has to have a desk with drawers to fill up with stories.

What Dad Christmas memories do you have?