What Was Your First Christmas Like...?

[SteyrAUG]

No I don't mean your oldest memory of a childhood Christmas, I mean your first one as a young adult.

Mine was almost 25 years ago, in Marshalltown, Iowa.

Back then I got by working at Zeno's Pizza, not a bad job and sometimes there'd be a few extra pies that didn't get spoken for so nobody went hungry even if they didn't make a lot.

I was living in a small one bedroom apartment, the kind where the bedroom becomes the living room depending upon where the imaginary line is drawn.

The christmas tree which was purchased at the local grocery store for $25 completely filled the space between my waterbed and the wall. So one had to climb over the bed to get to the closet. It was capable of lighting the entire apartment.

I was living with a girlfriend and money was short. We exchanged single gifts of new sneakers and a bottle of perfume, but it's not like we were going hungry...we just didn't have a lot left over after buying a ham, potatoes, corn and all the rest.

The sorta meal that goes down really good when there is an inch of ice on the window. We didn't have a dining room table so much as a countertop that was about 2 x 5 feet and a couple bar stools. Everything my girlfriend cooked took up the entire kitchen counter, not that it was very large either.

We had family and friends which we saw during the day, but this was really the first christmas of my own. It was a meager start and they've come a long way since then. With the economy the way it is, christmas this year isn't what it usually is, but nobody is hungry or anything.

And my mind keeps finding it's way back to that small Iowa apartment and the single gift of a pair of shoes (something that would have been disasterous if I was a kid) and how it was actually kinda nice.

Here's hoping that everyone is doing very well, or at least making do.

[montanadave]

Thanks for the well wishes. Merry Christmas to you and yours as well.

The first Christmas my ex-wife and I spent by ourselves away from our families was while I was attending grad school in Oklahoma. Our cat, which I had given to my wife as an engagement present, got sick about a week before Christmas. Real sick. Ended up in the vet hospital for 3-4 days, blood transfusions, a whole bunch of shit which totally blew a hole in the money we has saved for the holidays. Things were looking a tad bleak.

Then this guy shows up at our little rented house with a brand new Sony Trinitron TV. It was a 25" or 27" TV, I can't remember for sure, but it was HUGE and weighed about a ton (this was the early 80s). Anyway, I had no idea what was going on and knew we sure as hell couldn't pay for the TV. So I wouldn't let the guy in the house. Told him I hadn't ordered any TV and he had the wrong address.

So the delivery guy asks if he can use our phone to call the shop and figure out what's going on. The owner of the store gets on the phone and explains to me that my dad had called him and arranged to have the TV delivered to us a couple of days before Christmas. About the same time the mail shows up and there's a card from my mom with a check for $250 telling us to go out and buy a tree and decorations and Christmas dinner, etc., etc.

That certainly wasn't the first (or the last) time my folks have saved my ass, but they sure rescued Christmas that year. And even the cat made it home for Christmas (and eventually back to Montana).

[ucrt]

.

It was our first Christmas married and she was a few months pregnant. My mom had been telling my new wife how I always got the broken toy (train set, race car set, walkie-talkies) or someone would steal it (bike, rod/reel) or the batteries would be dead...

I was an apprentice and my wife worked in the mall, so money was scarce. She complained about how crummy our bed pillows were, so I scraped up and bought her a 1st class 100% down pillow for $90 and a "hair-thin" gold bracelet for $25.

She had been saving nickels & dimes and went to a stereo shop, told the guy she wanted a decent stereo for me to listen to cassettes. She had $125 which was enough to buy me two Bose 301 speakers (that were demo's), and an Onkyo Cassette deck. When we opened gifts, she was thrilled with her pillow & bracelet and after I opened my gifts up, she said, "Wire 'em up, let's listen to Christmas music!"

When I told her I had to have an Amp or receiver, she cried like a baby cause I couldn't play with my toys. She went back the next day and jumped all over that sales guy, so bad that the owner of the store gave her a cheap Fisher receiver.

Sure was a long time ago...

.

[usmcvet]

My first Christmas away from home was 1990. I was an 18 year old Marine PFC at Lejeune. I was about to deploy to the Gulf. I don't remember too much other than being homesick and lonely. My first birthday away from "home" was a few weeks later in the Gulf.

[usmcvet]

http://m4carbine.net/picture.php?albumid=304&pictureid=1524

Manifa Bay Saudi Arabia a few weeks after my first Christmas away from home.

I'm the good looking kid on the left.:D

[SteyrAUG]

My first Christmas away from home was 1990. I was an 18 year old Marine PFC at Lejeune. I was about to deploy to the Gulf. I don't remember too much other than being homesick and lonely. My first birthday away from "home" was a few weeks later in the Gulf.


Pretty sobering reminder of how many of our vets spend the holidays. Hopefully they got better over the years.

[usmcvet]

Yes they've been pretty wonderful since. We had some fun at Lejeune. I wish I recorded or wrote down the 12 days if Christmas spoof song we came up with. There was some pretty funny stuff. It was just part if my growing up.

My time in the military was short. One of the biggest things it taught me was to be thankful for what we have. A bed and running water are pretty high on my list! We went 46 days w/o a shower and much longer w/o a toilet. After 46 days even the cold feild shower felt pretty damn good.:D

Today I'm sitting watching the Patriots in HD in my overstuffed chair next to the wood stove. I'm watching my kids play and we are all looking forward to spending time together tomorrow. I can't wait to watch them open their gifts. Their giggles and smiles are priceless. Even juts wresteling with them earlier today was priceless.



There are many men and women who've died protecting us here at home. All I can say is thank you and God Bless you to them.

[ST911]

No I don't mean your oldest memory of a childhood Christmas, I mean your first one as a young adult.

I think we all lived the same lives then, in one way or another.

Regular job, exceptionally...modest...apartment, basic necessitites. Poor in stuff, adequate in true necessities. Life wasn't champagne wishes and caviar dreams, but is was really simple. And remarkably happy.

[usmcvet]

I think we all lived the same lives then, in one way or another.

Regular job, exceptionally...modest...apartment, basic necessitites. Poor in stuff, adequate in true necessities. Life wasn't champagne wishes and caviar dreams, but is was really simple. And remarkably happy.

Well said. Simple was often happy.

[Belmont31R]

My first Christmas away from home was pretty good. During HS we had a German exchange student at our school. She helped my best friend and I since we took German together, and became friends with her. We took her out to dinner a few times and stuff while she was here.


Anyways went to basic in June 03, and then AIT. Got stationed in Germany in Dec 03. Looked the girl up, and ended up taking a train to her village about 3-4hrs away way down in the mountains. Had a great 5 days with her and her family. They bought me presents (wasnt expecting anything and didn't show up with anything- still feel bad about that!) and it was a blast. Snow, mountains, German girls, food, wine, beer, went cross country skiing with her dad, met a lot of cool people, ect. I deployed about 2 weeks later so it was a great treat before heading out.


Have spent a Christmas in Kuwait as we were waiting to head north. The guys with families were kinda bummed but we tried to make the best of it. The base FD decorated their trucks and there was an impromptu parade going around.

[LowSpeed_HighDrag]

My first christmas away from home was spent at MCRD San Diego, 3rd Phase of bootcamp. We got up that morning, had chow, got yelled at for being alive, then went to the theater to watch "A Christmas Story". Most of us fell asleep as this was the first time we got to sit down and relaxe in 2.5 months. Our Kill Hat took down the names of the sleeping recruits, and then destroyed us when we got back, at least until our SDI saved us and then said with a low frog voice, "Merry ****ing Christmas, Ho Ho Ho". Lol, we couldnt help but laugh, which brought us right back to the quarter deck for more fun. That night we went to church and sang Christmas carols, AND WE ALL STAYED AWAKE. The next day was business as usual.

Ive spent alot of Christmas's in the military away from home, and it helps to treat it like any other day. I got to skype my wife yesterday for the first time, and that was one of my best gifts Ive ever had.

[Mark/MO]

Poor in stuff, adequate in true necessities. Life wasn't champagne wishes and caviar dreams, but is was really simple. And remarkably happy.

What Skintop911 said got me thinking, why is it that the simpler, more austere times are the ones we remember the most fondly? My first Christmas away from home was the first I spent as a newlywed. We lived in a small 1 bedroom duplex in a rural area and we “didn’t have two nickels to rub together”, as my granddad used to say. I worked while my wife was finishing college and wasn’t employed. We had food to eat, a roof over our head and little else but we were happy.

That first Christmas we had an old used artificial tree and little money to buy gifts. I still remember her gift to me, a Stanley stainless steel thermos. She had saved for a long time to get the $20 or whatever it cost. I still have the thermos and use it every work day. When I do I remember that day so many years ago and smile.

[montanadave]

My first Christmas away from home was the first I spent as a newlywed.

When I do I remember that day so many years ago and smile.

Your post got me thinking again about that first Christmas I described above. We're not together anymore, but we sure had some good times and shared a lot of terrific memories.

God, I never realized until today how much I miss that TV.

[usmcvet]

http://m4carbine.net/picture.php?albumid=304&pictureid=1524

Manifa Bay Saudi Arabia a few weeks after my first Christmas away from home.

I'm the good looking kid on the left.:D

Skype made me think about Tapes. My prized possessions were photos and some tapes my girlfriend made for. Some were mixes and the best were tapes that were just of her talking to me. We wrote lots of letters to eachother. I had fun with the free postage rules. Just writing a postcard on the back the cardboard from the main meal of an MRE or some of the local single serving cereal boxes.

I was in an M60 team. The guy in the middle was our Gunner. He is wearing a little red fanny pack with my WalkMan. The fanny pack was something I was given when our flight stopped at a USO tent at an airport in Germany.