During the year, Home Artisans of Indiana members are hard at work improving and beautifying your home, but during the holidays we are busy spending quality time with our families and friends. Here we’ve gathered our sweet, nostalgic, quirky holiday memories from childhood:

“I loved putting together the artificial tree with my dad. It had individual branches that needed to be plugged in by color. The colors would fade a little bit more every year, adding to the challenge.”

Kristen Allen, Drapery Street

“One year my mom and dad outdid themselves. We woke up Christmas morning to presents out to the middle of the living room floor! It was so awesome!”

Christina Garten, Christina’s Complete Clean

“I had a wonderful childhood and it’s difficult to pick a favorite memory. But one of them is going to bed on Christmas eve and hearing various digital sounds, realizing I was getting one of the gifts I wanted. I woke up Christmas morning and unwrapped a very hot 90’s item—a Mattel Electronic Handheld Basketball game. To this day I can visualize my mom and dad sitting on the couch while my brother and I played our games.”

David Stamper, Planes Companies

“Every year my dad wouldn’t let us listen to Christmas music or start celebrating Christmas until after Santa came ‘riding in his sleigh’ in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. So every year we watched the parade on Thanksgiving and as soon as Santa came, I ran to the stereo and turned on the same Christmas CD so we could start to celebrate the holiday.”

Amanda Listak, The Affordable Companies

“At thirteen years old I got my first small record player. I played both 45 and 78 records.”

Donna Moulder, Mirror Concepts, Inc.

“Every time we opened gifts, we had to guess what the presents were before opening. We got an extra treat if we guessed correctly.”

Tracy Leeper King, Indiana Lighting Center

“My favorite memory of the holidays as a kid? No school!”

Paul Carroll, Mercer Belanger, P.C.

“My older brother made it his mission to convince me Santa was real. We stayed up to see him but I fell asleep. The next day he told me he stayed awake and saw the guy. I was a believer for many more years to come.”

Doug Marvel, Marvelous Woodworking

“I remember waking up to a new drum set under the tree.”

Kent McCool, Home Safe Homes

“We would go to my Maw-maw and Paw-paw’s house. All the cousins would wait for Santa to come down the stairs and we would put on a Christmas play for all the parents. It still makes me smile.”

Diana Dinges, Ferguson Bath, Kitchen & Lighting Gallery

“My favorite memory comes from Thanksgiving, when all my family went on a rabbit hunt.”

Carlton Mills, Ductz

“When I was about eight, I came downstairs to the largest teddy bear I’d ever seen. I named him ‘Big Bear’; I was very literal at the time. Thirty years later Big Bear is in my basement, and now my kids play with him.”

Brian Schutt, Homesense Heating & Cooling

“My favorite holidays were always the ones that came with a heap of snow. One New Year’s we got half an inch of sawdust snow, no good for snowball fights or snowmen. But we came up with a new game. My cousin and I trekked all over the countryside, and our dads had to follow our trail to find us. We actually succeeded in losing them by crossing back and forth over a stream.”

Emelie Havard, Fresh Figs Marketing

Do you have a favorite childhood memory of the holidays? Share it with us below, and enjoy the holidays this year!