What was your best Christmas present ever?

There are forgettable Christmas gifts, like socks, books and kitchen appliances.

And then, there are the best Christmas presents ever!

That’s what we want to hear about.

Each of us has our own story of a gift that we’ll treasure forever. It might be time spent with a child. It might be a toy that entertained you in your youth. It might be a surprise from Santa. If you’d like to share your story with our readers, please email it to [email protected]. We’ll publish submissions on Dec. 23.

To help get you started, to give you an idea of just what it is we’re after, some of The Press staff shared tales of Christmases past that touched their hearts.

Merry Christmas!

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Thanks to mom

One year after my mom died, my dad followed her wishes and gave my sisters and me part of her life insurance.

We had no idea that she had told him to do this.

I used my part as a down payment for a house. Thanks to my mom, I now have a home of my own.

— Glen Christmann, news editor

Yes, Virginia, there are honest people

On Dec. 15, 1992, my parents and I were on our way to spend Christmas with my grandmother, Katherine, in Yuma, Ariz. We were traveling in our Chevy pickup and camper. My dad had bought a car-top carrier to put our Christmas presents in. Because there was ice on the camper he was unable to mount the carrier. Instead he strapped it down with ropes. He planned to mount it permanently after the ice melted.

We headed out of North Idaho, through Bend, Ore., then down Interstate 5. Our plan was to go to Disneyland on the way to Yuma. On the second day of travel we were passing through Stockton, Calif., when a truck driver passed waving at us. My mom thought it was just a really friendly truck driver.

Apparently the car-top carrier had flew off the top of our camper. We got off the freeway at the next exit and circled back to find it. We saw it sitting in the median, but after several exits off the freeway our car-top carrier was gone.

Feeling sad that our presents were gone, we reported it lost to the California Highway Patrol. We continued on our trip to Disneyland. On the way to Yuma my dad called my grandmother. Katherine said that my other grandmother, Shirley, had called and was very worried about us. She had received a call from a local retail truck driver in California who had picked up our car-top carrier. He found her name and address on a present she sent in the mail to me.

After spending Christmas in Yuma, we stopped in Stockton to pick up the car-top carrier and presents at the truck driver’s house.

Inside the car-top carrier was a note from Santa Claus that said he had stopped to deliver my presents and that Rudolph chewed the ropes, which made our carrier fly off the camper.

I would have to say not one particular present has ever been the best, but the experience of having our Christmas presents returned and to know that honest people exist has been the best gift I have ever received.

— Hillary Main, special sections editor

Still rockin’

When I was 15, I fancied myself a rock drummer. I had no skills, no connections and, worst of all, no drum kit, but I had the desire to be the next Neil Peart.

So of course, I asked my parents for drums that Christmas, never expecting a kit to materialize in my small bedroom. To my surprise, I did receive drums under the tree … a set of bongo drums, with stripes of dark and light-colored wood running down each side.

Now some teens might have grumbled about getting that gift — because in the world of wanna-be rock stars, size matters. Instead, I have pounded away to my favorite songs ever since, and even laid down a solo on a homemade tape of “Wipeout” some of my college friends recorded.

Thanks for rockin’ my Christmas wish list, Mom and Dad.

— Joel Donofrio, assistant news editor

Treasure trash

All my little chums wanted to be a policeman or a fireman. OK, Ned “Carly Bobs” Carlson wanted to be an international banker, but Ned wasn’t normal.

I wanted to be a garbageman.

No (expletive). I thought cleaning up other people’s (expletive) would make my brief tenure as a planet-roaming mortal worthwhile.

OK, that’s a lie. I was 4 years old. I thought garbage trucks were cool.

So that’s the year Santa bestowed upon me a nifty white camion garbage with a lever that with one smooth pull would engage the bucket at the back of the truck, lifting it skyward until it swiveled and dumped its trashy load into an opening in the top of the truck.

I remember spending Christmas morning crawling on the carpet, picking up every fragment of cracked walnut shell, every scrap of shredded wrapping paper, every unwanted remnant of that glorious gluttonous gift gorging that would fit in a garbage truck about the size of my dad’s fist.

That garbage truck served me and our carpet well for several years. Only an act of God — a heavy downpour overnight when I’d left the truck out under the bushes where I’d been clearing away (expletive) for an imaginary construction crew — could take it away from me. And all that’s left to remind me of that treasured toy is the garbage mouth I have today.

— Mike Patrick, managing editor

The list

My greatest Christmas gifts have come on three levels in the following order:

1. Christ’s birth, the reason for the season;

2. ornaments made each year by our boys, Nathan, 13, and Casey, 11, at school; and

3. the best present under the tree (I had it be my birthday present as well) was the 70-200 mm camera zoom lens my wife Kim shocked me with a few years back.

The boys’ ornaments are made with heart, which tugs at my heart each time they bring home something that showcases their creative talents. Try as they may, wrapped presents under the tree will never trump gifts of the heart.

When decorating time rolls around, I always look forward to digging their ornaments from over the years out of the Christmas boxes. They never get stale like bulbs and tree tops and they’re always first on the tree and countertops.

Some of the best ones are with their photos, a reminder of how quickly they grow up and time flies.

My camera lens — great for shooting sports — always gets a lot of attention when I bring it out at events. It also helps me look like I know what I’m doing.

Other shooters with smaller lenses have offered a trade, but I haven’t fallen for it.

But lens’ are all about perspective. When eagles come to Wolf Lodge Bay each winter, mine is a peon compared to what’s out there.

When my lens draws a crowd, I remind the admirers that I can even zoom in on their nose hairs with it.

That always seems to get them away.

— Brian Walker, staff writer

Let the drinking begin

The greatest Christmas gift I got was when I was around 20 years old, when my parents allowed me to drink a screwdriver while opening our gifts. I felt it was a rite of passage in a young man’s life. I probably got socks that morning, too. How dare you judge my family right now, at Christmas, the season when families come together.

— Tom Hasslinger, staff writer

Ups and downs

I knew my Christmas wish at 10 years old, after an introduction to the perfect thing at my best friend’s house.

A trampoline.

My parents obliged, kind of, gifting me with a mini fitness trampoline I promptly broke with my exulted leaping. The replacement broke, too, which in turn broke my parents. One day I opened the door to our back yard to find a massive circle of bouncy heaven gleaming a few feet above the grass.

I tumbled aboard, bent my legs and lifted off toward the sky.

Bliss.

It became my refuge. I would squirm through the school day, eager to get home, dump my back pack at the door, kick off my shoes and bound onto the trampoline. For hours sometimes I would fling my body around in the air, always landing softly in an elastic embrace. If I had sleep-overs, the girls lined up for a jumping competition, inevitably ending with everyone lying supine on the mat staring up at the stars.

I didn’t care about rain or frost, snow or single-digit temperatures. As long as I could still get a good bounce going, I was above the trials of the world.

I remember my mother wandering outside to observe me once, finally declaring, “I think that’s the best thing we ever bought you.”

It wasn’t to last.

One morning I woke up and couldn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t even move.

A trip to the ER determined I had a fractured neck, the uncommon “clay shoveler’s fracture” that results from extreme stress to the spine.

This time, the trampoline had broken me.

The neck brace only had to stay on several weeks, then ongoing physical therapy had me holding my head up on my own with minimal pain.

Despite my quick healing, my parents were done. The trampoline was dismantled, the parts tossed. I cried a little, but understood.

Now I run, instead of jump, which seems to do my mind and body equal good. But every now and then, I still daydream of trading in my treadmill for a big elastic mat to lift me high into the air.

— Alecia Warren, staff writer

Parents made Christmas magical

My parents went to great lengths to make Christmas magical for my younger brother and me.

There was the time in 1969 when I desperately wanted a very popular doll. I was 7 and the Crissy Doll, with hair that “grew,” was all the rage that year. Stores couldn’t keep the dolls on the shelves. My mom went all over trying to get me one, with no luck. The stores kept selling out.

Somehow, Santa managed to bring me one. I was one happy second-grader. I found out years later that my dad, who worked in construction, went out at 2 a.m. to a special Crissy Doll sale at one of the stores. He stood in line for hours so he could buy the toy for me.

Looking back, I realize my parents’ effort to keep the magic of Christmas alive for my brother and me is probably the greatest gift of all — even the year their good intentions kind of back-fired.

I was one of those kids who wouldn’t go to bed when I was told to. I fought sleep — hard.

When I was 5, my parents made it very clear to me that Santa would not leave me any presents if I was still awake when he arrived.

I became a very anxious 5-year-old. I was really worried about this. I’m sure my parents didn’t realize how much it troubled me.

That Christmas eve, I tried to go to bed very early, on my own. I couldn’t fall asleep. I tossed and turned, becoming more and more concerned about Santa’s approaching arrival and my conscious state.

I was in my little bed in the small bedroom I shared with my then 2-year-old brother. We lived in a little rancher, my parents’ first house.

Suddenly, I heard it. “Ho, ho, ho!!!” There were bells. It was right outside my bedroom window. I couldn’t look.

I sat up in bed and screamed, “HE’S HERE!!!!” A major meltdown ensued as I became hysterical. There would be no gifts for me.

My parents came running and tried to comfort me, while trying not to laugh.

It was my uncles, my dad’s younger brothers. They meant no harm. They were just trying to add a little more magic to their niece’s holiday experience.

The crying jag tired me out, and I was able to fall asleep and awaken to find Santa had been there. Despite my rebellion against bed and sleep, Santa still thought I was a pretty good girl.

— Maureen Dolan, staff writer