Ask the Readers: What is Your Favorite Childhood Memory?
Editor's Note: Congratulations to Raina, Michelle, and Ben for winning this week's contest!
The holidays are coming up! It's a special time for many families, and it's often around this time that we create our fondest childhood memories...though not always!
What is your favorite childhood memory? Why is it your favorite? If there are kids in your life, what do you do to make sure they have fond memories of their childhood to carry with them as they grow?
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My favorite Childhood memory is when we all went to Disneyland with my Uncle and his family! It was so much fun. And My Uncle paid for us to go.
going with my family to pick out a tree
My favorite childhood memory is going to Dairy Queen for dipped cones. There are no kids in my life so I don't deal with anyone else's memories.
My favorite childhood memory was winning my middle school's top English student award.
My favorite memory is camping with my parents
I have a big Italian family and my favorite childhood memory was gathering at my grandparents house with all my cousins, aunts, uncles, parents and siblings every Christmas Eve and enjoying traditional Italian holiday food, playing with my cousins and watching my grandfather hand out an envelope with $20 inside to all 20 of his grandchildren. I will never forget those times and well always cherish them in my heart.
My favorite childhood memory is going camping with my family. My dad rented a pop-up trailer that he pulled behind the station wagon and even though it looked small, actually slept 6. We visited relatives in Michigan and camped in the northern part and the Upper Peninsula.
Lots of parts of the holiday season come together to make my favorite childhood memory. The smell of food cooking / baking, sitting around the TV watching football with the family, crisp weather outside. All those things are what I remember as my best childhood memory.
My favorite childhood memory is spending Christmas with my family. We would have a big dinner on Christmas Eve, and I would always go to bed excited anticipating what Santa might have left during the night.
My favorite memory is our family reunions.
I don't think I could pick one favorite memory. But one of the ones I remember the most was traveling as a family to the mountains for the first time and camping on top of a mountain.
Coming out of the tent in the morning, seeing the sun rising on the other mountain peak, and seeing all the wildlife - amazing experience.
For my/our 7th birthday (twins), my parents brought the picnic table into the living room. Our b-day is a couple of weeks before Christmas, so we and our friends made stained glass cookies with sugar cookie dough and crushed Lifesavers. (The candy melted in the oven.)
So many great memories! I remember our first family vacation to Myrtle Beach. The weather was perfect and we were all "old enough to really appreciate it."
camping with the family and our Dalmation dog Bingo
We were a family of six so vacations had to be on the cheap. My favorite memory is going camping with a pop-up trailer to Yellowstone National Park - way back in the day. We had so much fun cooking over a fire, hiking and enjoying the heck out of camping in general. It's still a fun adventure for families to go camping together.
My favorite childhood memory is the race to the little league concession stand after a win!
When I was little, my parents would put up the Christmas tree in our living room and then they would let my brother and me take turns sleeping on the sofa. It was magical falling asleep in the dark living room, with the twinkling tree glowing just a few feet away. Mom or Dad would come and turn off the lights after we'd fallen asleep, of course. I remember those trees as being the most beautiful things in the world.
I had a great childhood with so many good memories its hard to choose one. I remember one night it snowed and my dad stayed up late building us an igloo then we spent the day playing in it and having snowball fights.
I love thinking about how much I played outside.
I have many favorite childhood memories, but going to my Mamal and Papal's house after church every Sunday I one of the best. I have a really great family on my mom's side, and I know I'm really blessed.
Over Christmas school break we'd visit my parent's home turf near Pittsburgh. Most of our relatives still lived nearby. An uncle and aunt joined us at my Mom's folks's house for a Panarda type feast on Christmas Eve and again the following afternoon for yet another Christmas spread. Grandmom prepared for at least a week previous to our coming. She let me help with some last minute stuff. And she'd always make gnocchi for one of the meals that week. (My favorite and great fun for a kid to help roll.) Before returning home our family visited cousins, aunts and uncles, and our second set of grandparents. Each household had their rhythms and delights. Many happy memories.
It's a tossup between the huge extended family Christmas where Santa made a surprise stop early on Christmas Eve (with gifts!!) or any Halloween spent trick-or-treating on the mill hill.
Going to Disney World. I went when I was 5 (which I don't really remember), 10 and 15 and most of my memories from there are a combo of those last two visits.
swimming in the lake on a summer day, then eating fluffernutters and drinking chocolate milk
Going to the beach in the summer. My parents would rent a little cottage and we would spend a week playing in the ocean.
Going to the beach in the summer. My parents would rent a little cottage and we would spend a week playing in the ocean.
My favorite childhood memory was my father taking me to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial right after the dedication ceremony in November 1982. It was a very emotional experience for him as many of his childhood friends died in that horrible war, and it was the first time I had ever seen my father cry. That experience brought us as close together as a father and young daughter can be and I will treasure the memory my father gave me of recognizing the humanity of all of us and the honor and dedication of those young soldiers.
Going to the water park!
Visiting my grandparents. They had such great places to explore on their property. Honeysuckles lined the driveway. We had picnics in the woods behind their house and also built a treehouse back there. I remember catching fireflies in the evenings. So many wonderful memories!
There are a lot to pick from, but I think mine would be as simple as family hikes on nice fall days in the Appalachian Mountains.
One of my favorite memories must also be one of my earliest. When I was in preschool my parents decided I was still too young to sit nicely through a church service. So on Sunday mornings my Dad and I would go to Dunkin Donuts and maybe even the park while my Mom went to Mass with my brother and sister. Even that young, I knew my siblings were jealous of the great deal I had!
I was ten years old, an only child, shy and lonely as we recently moved from another state. Christmas was approaching, and I needed a friend. On Christmas Eve, my parents came home with a small cocker spaniel puppy whom we named Skipper. Skipper became my best friend and gave me the unconditional love I longed for. He was my passport for making new friends in my neighborhood as we embarked on long walks. Sixty three years have passed since then, but that still remains my favorite Christmas and childhood memory.
Best memories by far are canoeing with my family as a kid when we had a brand new puppy, he was adorable.
My favorite Childhood memory is spending time at our Grandparents lake house swimming and boating.
I fondly remember when my grandfather helped me and my brother make a snowman. I thought it was so funny he made a nose with snow instead of using a carrot. Around that same time, Santa Claus also came to visit us, which was beyond exciting. If I have kids, I hope I'll be able to provide them with a lot of memories of good times spent together as a family.
Sitting in a tree eating green peppers out the garden.
My favorite childhood memory was playing Ghost in the graveyard with my neighborhood friends and going up to our lake cabin.
My favorite childhood memory is helping my mom cook dinners together.
My favorite childhood memory is watching my brother play video games (and occasionally joining him on multiplayer). I don't have any children yet.
Not paying bills!!
My favorite childhood memories would have to be visiting Grandma! She had this great big apple tree in her backyard. Mmmm Grandma's apple pie!
My little sister and I would gather up all the apples that fell to the ground and Grandma made the best applesauce from them. :)
I love the different Sunday family trips we would always go on together on the weekends.
Me and my sister spent a couple of summers in NYC visiting our oldest sister and those were the best childhood memories! No parents around and my sister let us roam NYC during the daytime by ourselves and would take us on the weekends to get pizza, italian ices, visit central park, etc,etc. It was exciting times for a 10 and 15 year old!
When I was given a huge candy cane as big as me!
Spending the entire summer at our cottage on the lake.
Going trick or treating with my mom. I would get a huge bag full of candy and dump it all on the living room floor and she would help me sort it.
Playing games as a family.
seeing the ocean for the first time! Yes we always try to make events special for our kids and take lots of pictures for their scrapbooks
My Mom would take us shopping on Saturday mornings. We would walk to the shopping area near us - 2 department stores, 3 dime stores, and lots of mom and pop places. We would have lunch at the Woolworth's counter - turkey dinner under a buck - and I would get a new coloring book or cutouts ( I think those ran a dime ). And yes, this was a long time ago.
Renting a cabin in the mountains with my cousins when I was about 9... we played in the little stream building dams for hours. Water was such a novel plaything since we were all raised as desert rats in Tucson, Arizona!
Summer vacations at a family friend's lake house.
My favorite childhood memory is spending Christmas with my family.
I feel fortunate that I have too many to name! One of my favorite childhood memories was going 'down the shore' with my family every summer. My mother was a teacher and my father would take off a month in the summer so we had a lot of time together.
My favorite memory is the time that my family flew across country to spend Christmas with my grandparents.
My favorite childhood memory was the Christmas I was 9 because we got a stereo that year. Also, the trip to mom's sister's house was especially nice that year.
I loved our day trips to the beach. My parents had four kids, so this was like our vacation. We always had a great time.
Every year at Christmas our family took the rapid transit downtown. We visited the big department stores. We marveled at Sterling Linder's towering Christmas tree, the Twigbee Shop which was just for children to buy presents for their families and Halle's 7th floor where Mr. Jingeling, Keeper of Santa's keys greeted us before we saw Santa.
Dinner was at the Silver Grille where kids dinners arrived in cardboard stoves that we could take home. It was magical!
Playing with my childhood dog and spending time baking with my grandmother.
My favorite childhood memory is the first time I went to Disney world