Sisk's "Tales of Holiday Joy or Horror!" Contest! Win Prizes

[Nyuka]

Nyuka
When Santa came to my house
Entry #1:

While Christmas has always been a magical time of year for me, my belief in Santa Claus was something that I struggled with as a child. I think its fair to tell you that my parents were married on Christmas and my Father plays santa every year. It was because of this that had me believing that my father was Santa, or their was no Santa Claus at all. It was on a crucial year in my belief that my father did something that would awaken new belief in me for many years too come. (Take note that this was the age before video manipulation was a common thing in the home.)

That year my father had told my brothers and I, he was going to set up a video camera to film Santa Clauses visit that year. I was in extreme disbelief when my father set up a card board chimney (Since we didn't have a real one at the time) for Santa to use. My father had told me that Santa could turn even a fake chimney into the real thing for a short time. So with uneasy faith in my fathers words I went to bed with butterfly in my belly waiting for Santa to come.

The next morning after we had finished opening presents my father put on the video tape for us to see. What I saw amazed me, from the tape I could hear Santa coming down a chimney, and then he was their coved in suit. He wiggled his nose and present appeared by the tree. Then to my surprise my father came into the scene and greeted Santa before he when back up the chimney. It was then my father quickly grabbed the video tape and shown it up the chimney and their you could see the stars. Everything my father had said was true and it renewed my faith in Santa for many more years.

If your wandering how it was done, my father had gotten my oldest brother to dress the part of Santa for the tape. He would stop and start the camera in order to have the presents appear out of thin air and again when he showed the stars up in the chimney. These are some of the cheapest camera tricks in the book, but that fact that my father spent the time to do this, and allow us to hold on to our faith in Santa a little longer, is something that I will never forget. This was one of the most special Christmases I've ever had.

[siskataya]

Thank you all so much for entering! These are great! I'm just deciding on the winners and I'll announce them tomorrow biggrin

[siskataya]

Hey everyone!

Thank you all so much for entering this contest! It took me a little longer to pick the winners than I thought - I wanted to go through and re-read all the entries. They were all so fabulous! Thanks for sharing you touching, and sometimes hilarious, holiday stories with me!

It was super tough to pick the winners, but after careful thought, I've chosen the following entries:

Winner for the Best Humorous Story is:
* avarcoe1 for her tale of trying to do the right thing and ending up with a pile of frozen shrimp and an insult about her gift. Oh my word, I was just laughing thinking about pretending to be eating shrimp while secretly trying to hide them in napkin XD

avarcoe1

*avarcoe1
* A Frozen Family Holiday Dinner
* Entry # 1

My father's sister, my aunt, is a notoriously difficult person. If you say the sky is blue, she'll say that it's grey. If you say that something is salty, she'll say it is not salty enough, and put more in. In short, she is hard to please. My Mom and I have a game that we play with her - whoever catches her saying the most contrary things (which you must remember and then be able to repeat), can win a prize.

Several years ago, my aunt decided to host Christmas dinner at her house. This is not a very good thing because she not only is a pretty bad cook, but she doesn't believe I am allergic to something that I am allergic to and insists on putting it in things in the meal...she seems to believe you can overcome an allergy with good character (apparently I am exceptionally bad...). So, my parents and I arrive at my aunt's home, meeting my 90 some year old aunt and uncle to sit down to the holiday feast. That year, due to being a poor college student, I had painted boxes as Christmas presents and put candy in them. I was actually pretty pleased with my presents, although I am definitely not Martha Stewart. My aunt is in full chaos mode - freaking out in the kitchen, some things are not cooked, some things are over cooked, etc. My Mom and I are expected to fix it, which we do to the best of our ability.

We sit down to dinner and my aunt announces that she forgot something. Back into the kitchen she goes and then into the freezer. A few moments more and she is back with a bowl, which she sets down near me saying that since I have an "allergy," she purposefully picked up an item that she knows I love, as well as something that my great aunt enjoys.

I look in the dish. It's shrimp. Frozen, uncooked shrimp. Really. I put two on my plate. My great aunt does the same, as does my father. A few minutes pass by and my aunt is waiting for me to eat them. I say, don't they need to be cooked? Of course, I am wrong, they are already cooked (and yet so NOT pink) and I just need to wait a few minutes before I eat them. My great aunt leans over and says to me, they are frozen, what do we do? I carefully begin to steal frozen, uncooked shrimp off my great aunt and my father's plates. My Mom, watching what I am doing, keeps distracting my aunt with random stories and questions, so I can keep taking them out of the bowl and hiding them in the paper napkin on my lap.

At the end of dinner, I offer to clear the table and manage to hide the pile of shrimp in the garbage. My aunt asks me how I enjoyed them. I lie and say they were great, what a very nice gesture to accommodate my "allergy." In case you are wondering, this is the last time we had Christmas dinner at my aunt's home, at least the last time it was cooked by her - my Mother and I have brought fully cooked dinner to her house for holidays, usually saying that we know how busy she is and we'd like to make dinner for her.

By the way, my aunt called me up to thank me for that Christmas present. She asked if I made it myself. I said yes, thinking I had pleased her. She said, thank god, because she was afraid I had paid money for it!

Winner for the Most Heartwarming/Touching Story is:
Wolf Of Heart, who reminds us the holidays are not about the money, and no matter how far away, those we love are always close in our spirits. Beautiful quilt - what a great and thoughtful gift biggrin

Wolf Of Heart

By: Wolf Of Heart
May Our memories Warm You
Entry #1:

In life, there are those that stick by you no matter what. Those that are so special to your heart, being far from them pains you. My special someone is my Big Brother, Justin. He's my knight in shining armor, who always taught me to keep my head up, and never put boundaries on what I can accomplish. I miss him so much, because last year around Christmas, he decided to move away from Georgia... Thousands of miles, in fact, to Alaska. He said he had to, he couldn't find a job here and he had to find a way to help me and my mom.

Even now I miss him so much. I skype him whenever I can, and we tell each other "I love you, sweet dreams..." Nearly every night. This holiday has been so lonely without him. We grew up very poor, and didn't ever have much under the tree but handmade things, so that's what I also decided to do for him this year. I'm so excited to send off his gift, and to receive his call when he opens it on Christmas morning.

You see, I took about 25 of our favorite T-shirts, old high school shirts, our favorite band shirts, our mom's shirts... And I made them into a patchwork quilt, lined with soft black fleece. I've spent weeks on it, and I'm really proud of my work, it's not perfect, as it's the first quilt I've ever made, but I know he'll absolutely love it. My mom put a special piece of ribbon on it, and we've each took time to "put hugs in it," so he'll get them every time he wraps it around him. I even embroidered a special patch in the corner that reads: "To Justin, Love Heather. May Our Memories Warm You."


Pics: (I'll remove if asked...)

Me and the quilt:


Embroidered Patch (I'm not super-great at embroidery....):

The Best Holiday "Horror" Story Winner is a TIE between:
* Iadykiller, for her tale of an erant chipmunk that fell down the chimney one Christmas! Gah, having to spend the day setting traps, wrecking ornaments - what a nightmare... albeit a hilarious nightmare! XD

Iadykiller

username;Iadykiller
title; "The Unexpected Christmas "Friend"
entry; number oneee.

During my Christmas morning, it started out normal with cheer, with glasses of spiced eggnog and watching Christmas specials. Candles were lit within the living room, giving off warmth throughout the room and a great smell of pinecones and Christmas cookies. I got some of the best gifts in the world that day, and I couldn't be happier to spend those days with my family. Right after we finished opening our gifts, we got up to have a great Christmas breakfast. It all was a bright and cheery morning until I heard something come down our chimney (luckily there was no fire).

I believe I was the only one who heard it, so I called out "Did you guys hear that?" in a tiny, quiet voice. A few seconds later, a baby chipmunk fell down from the chimney into a huge pile of soot, and then started to run throughout the house. We all jumped up and screamed, not forgetting to use our sailor mouths, because it ran fast enough that we couldn't tell what it was. We even tried to follow after it and catch it, which didn't work. At first, we thought it was a huge rat, which makes common sense since we live next to a woods in New England.

I remember my brother and I set up traps in the living room so we can trap it and let it free. However, that plan didn't work as well as expected, either. Overall, it took us about an half an hour to get the little guy out of our house, with an additional damaged ornaments and downed christmas lights. We got him out of the house by blocking off all of the entrances and moving the furniture to make a pathway for the chipmunk. So whenever people ask me what I think of when I think of Christmas, I tell how much I hate chipmunks for being pains in the neck, not about all of the gifts I've gotten.

* Margareee, whose tale of dealing with thousands of zombie houseflies made me both laugh and cringe - ugh! What a holiday - I bet it is not one you want to relive any time soon XD

Margareee

* Username Margareee
* Title of Entry Merry Flymas
* Entry # 1

When I was around 12 years of age my family moved to the "big city." About a 4 hour car ride away from where we were living. After a couple of years my parents decided we would go "home" for Christmas. They had bought a an old barn that had be converted into a house. It was a beautiful place, you walked in through the front door to the living area with the kitchen to the right completely open to view. Just these huge old wood beams in an X shape acting as a divider. On the other side of the kitchen was a closed in garage.

Above the living area was two bedrooms accessible by an open wood staircase, and above the garage was also 2 bedrooms with the same type of staircase. So outside the bedrooms you could look down into the kitchen, it was completely open. And if you want to get to the other bedrooms, you had to go down one staircase and cross the kitchen to go up the other staircase. The only other thing joining the 2 separate was some more huge old wood beams.

It had used to be an old barn so there was lots of beams. My parents had so friends go in to turn the heat on so that when we arrived the place would be all nice and warm and ready for us.

Well what a welcome we got when we walked in that front door...OMG..hundreds..no I swear THOUSANDS of houseflies!! Everywhere! There was a carpet of flies! And because they had been "woken" up when the heat was turned on..they were that stupid doozey where if you swat them they go nowhere! Ugg I can still remember trying to swat them off my pillow! We had the vacuum out sucking them up. Still grosses me out thinking about it!

We figured because it was an old barn, the wood was probably full of fly eggs or flies and that's why there was so many of them. To this day I still love old wood, but I'm still nervous to bring it into my home!!

* Both Margareee and Iadykiller will win a prize biggrin

[Margaree]

Oh YAY smile lol glad you liked my flies *need a shiver emote here* We spent many Christmases after that one at "the barn" but I'll never forget that first one! Thanks so much for the prizes!

And congrats to everyone who won! I esp loved the shrimp one and the quilt one <33 What a beautiful present to receive!

[avarcoe1]

Officially the first prize I have won at Gaia - thank you so very much for choosing my story! I did so enjoy sharing it with you all. I made dinner this year for the same relatives and I have one additional aunt story to share. We had a roasted butternut squash soup for our opening course. I asked my aunt if she liked it and she said well, she "wouldn't order it in a restaurant or anything." It is just the funniest event every single time we get together wink I am also blessed with really lovely parents who taught me how to find this funny, rather than upsetting wink May you all have a humor filled, Happy New Year!

Thanks again!

[I e u n e]

ooh, this sounds cool i want to join 4laugh
*checks deadline* noooo! gonk

[Iadykiller]

....WAIT I WON SOMETHING? emotion_kirakira

[siskataya]

Iadykiller

....WAIT I WON SOMETHING? emotion_kirakira

Yes, yes you did! Congrats! Though sorry you had such "chipmunk issues" XD Happy New Year!

[siskataya]

Thanks again to all who entered, and congrats to the winners! I'm going to lock this thread now and move it to the closed contests forum. Hope you'll all join me for more contests in 2013 biggrin