In what for many is an exceptionally difficult year, we asked Commons readers on Facebook to share enduring memories of holiday moments that permanently resonate.
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Robin Rieske: We always got to open one special gift the night before Christmas that my mom would pick out. And she always wrapped our presents in color-coded paper so we would not try to sneak and figure out what we were getting. She would not tell us until the morning of Christmas whose color was whose, and sometimes she would trick us because she went out of ribbon that had a different code. She was a single mom of three. I look back now and think, "Wow - you rock, Mom!"
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Barbara Gantt: Our oldest Christmas tradition is reading the Christmas Story from my Grandma's Bible. She was born in 1900 and passed in 1999. I remember this from my childhood.
The oldest man reads and then prays for the family - thanking God for His blessing to us.
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Nancy Braus: My family has held an ongoing Thanksgiving dinner since long before I was born. In 1941, I believe, the dinner was postponed until the relatives my great grandfather sponsored arrived. Grete had somehow sprung Victor from Auschwitz, and they were arriving by boat. Our families have celebrated all big events together ever since.
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Rolf Parker-Houghton: On the solstice, Cynthia Parker-Houghton and I have flung a little man made of seitan off of a hill (bit.ly/seitan-man). Originally it was all a joke about making a "seitanic sacrifice" - a good laugh to get through the hardship of the dark.
But it morphed somewhat, and now we say if the sun gives more light, it means the little man made from meat-alternative products has succeeded in reigniting the sun. We still do it as part of the University of Brattleboro's attempts to bring some humor into the dark.
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Zara Bodē: Once we break out the Johnny Mathis Christmas record around here, it is on.
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Mark French: In my family, we had a tradition of "The Christmas Game," passed down from my mother's parents.
After Christmas Eve dinner, we would all sit around the table. Three decks of cards were shuffled and the cards handed out one at a time to each family member, minus 12 cards from a separate deck that would each be placed face down with prizes on top of them.
My grandfather would use the one deck that the prize cards had been pulled from to call out each remaining card, one at a time. Anyone who had a card left over at the end would win the prize that was on top of the corresponding down-facing card.
This tradition carried over long after my grandparents had passed away.
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Mark Ebenhoch: Snow. Virgin snow!
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Angela C. Taormina: As the final tree decoration, the youngest in the family was always lifted up high enough to place the star on top of the tree.
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Diana Vogel Toomey: Listening to Dylan Thomas read A Child's Christmas in Wales.
This Special section column was submitted to The Commons.