The cool thing with christmas ornaments is that since they are used a month every year, they last for decades.

I remember the old chest we used to put christmas ornements in. Those balls that are just plain, dumb, hollow, white plastic balls with colored nylon "silk" on it...I remember that one year in particular, I had some kind of fixation on the noise that those balls made on a big box wrapped in red paper...I don't even remember what was in it or if the present was even for me!

As for the food...let's say that my mom had five kids from her first marriage, my dad had four kids from his first marriage, that all those kids were already teenagers when I was born and gave my parents a total of 19 grandkids between 1990 and 2012 and that for Christmas, everyone, with their kids, with their spouses and the occasional acquaintance who had nowhere else to go came in.

Me and my mom started cooking on december 19th or 18th for a christmas party of 30 or 50 people. We put all that food in the freezer and come the night of december the 23rd, we put it to thaw on top of the freezer.

...and right now, just remembering that, I have trouble focusing to go on with the commentary because I am as excited as a kid!