DD Butler Welsh emailed friends and former journalism students and asked us to share stories about a memorable Christmas. She wants to include them in a letter to boost everyone’s spirit.

She recalled her “Dad trying to make noises like Santa on the roof one Christmas.”

That reminds me that I saw Momma kissing Santa Claus when I was about five years old. She said it was Daddy, but

DD suggested stories about being in a Christmas play, caroling, or if you peeked in presents.

Those ideas gave me visions of white crepe paper wrapped around coat hanger wires for my angel wings, and a halo of gold tinsel; caroling on a hayrack ride on the coldest night in history, and becoming an expert at unwrapping and rewrapping gifts under the tree.

Still, I stayed true to form, and opted to wait until she set a deadline.

Then the next day she emailed her first response from a guy named Bill: “Making Christmas thumb-print cookies with my granddaughter.”

Hmmm, I thought. Another good memory for me.

The following day she sent this from Nancy: “Cutting my own Christmas tree in Bend, Oregon in 1992, only to have it fall off the top of the car on the highway on the way home.”

A great story that sparked a brief memory of cutting down a tree at a friend’s horse farm in north Edmond, but I also wondered how Nancy and Bill keep their replies so brief. When I checked the email again I got my answer: they replied from their cell phones.

Then I sat down at the computer, and thought about a couple of our memorable Christmases, especially those in the early 1970s when we first became a family.

That’s when my new husband gave me a kitchen timer for Christmas.

“The honeymoon is over!” I announced, according family lore, then stomped down the hallway as the #1 Princess yelled, “He got you diamond stud earrings, too!”

Another early marriage Christmas was when my ever-lovin’ gave me a blue, long, furry bathrobe.

“Do you love it,” he asked. “I saw it when Dan and I went to lunch and a girl was modeling it.”

My reply: “Was she naked under it? What kind of place has models at lunch?”

Soon I became more gracious in accepting his gifts, and he stuck with those that sparkled.

As I sit in the living room my most memorable Christmas is when he put on his red long-Johns, bright green bermuda shorts with suspenders, and a red hat dec-orated with holly, tinsel and bells.

While our kids and a couple or three grands crowded around the Christmas tree to open presents one of the kids played Santa and handed out the gifts, then someone asked, “Where’s Dad?”

“I’m right here,” he said, then we all looked into the kitchen, and right at that instant the room became quiet as we all heard a noise: snap!

“Wow!” yelled Daddy Christmas. “I got a double,” he said, then produced a mouse trap with two tiny mice.

Ewww! But that’s the memorable Christmas story I’ll share with my high school journalism teacher, and 1962 grads. Yes, DD is still alive, and kicking in Norman. We were eighth graders in her first year to teach.