No other holiday stirs up as much nostalgia as Christmas. No matter how many years have passed since we first hung up a stocking or arranged a crib, those memories of simpler times still bring a warmth no commercial Christmas can match. We asked some of our readers to share those memories of Christmases past with us. Here’s what they remember, down through the years ….

“We were supposed to be on the Titanic, but my mother said it was too cold at that time of year to take three little girls on a ship. We came in June of 1912, and we settled in Ottawa. After we moved to Canada, my brother was born.

“On Christmas, we always went to midnight Mass, and then we hung our stockings up. We had a quick snack, and then we hurried to bed, because otherwise Santa Claus might miss us.

“Every year, my mother made a new dress for each of us. We knew my mother made them, so when we were little, she didn’t put them near our stockings. In our stockings, we would get an apple, an orange, maybe a small toy and some candy. We looked forward to it. In those days, you didn’t have that many dresses.

“For the Christmas tree, we made popcorn and strung it, and my mother made icicles. I’m not sure what she made them out of.

“For Christmas dinner, we always had a turkey, and it was always stuffed with sage and onions. There were always turnips or maybe parsnips, and my mother would always make a plum pudding.

“My mother was musical, so in the afternoon, my mother would play the piano, and a friend would come over and play the violin, and my father and brother and sisters and I would sing carols. I always liked ‘Angels We Have Heard on High.’

“It was just family mostly, and also two boys that came from England who didn’t have any family that my father sort of looked after. In those days, there was much better work in Canada than in England.”

1920s

Lillian Porter, 87, grew up at 2730 W. Congress St. in Chicago, in a home that was later razed to make way for the Eisenhower Expressway. She was the youngest in a family of three daughters and two sons.

“We got very little for Christmas, compared to what children get now. We all got just one thing. I can remember one year, when I was 8 or 9, I got a little sewing machine, and that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted a doll or maybe a teddy bear. I never used that sewing machine, and I don’t know what made my mother buy it.

“But later that day, a friend of my mother’s came over and brought me a little doll. My mother used to take care of her daughter while the friend was working.

“We also hung up our stockings. We always got fruit in that.

“We had a little Christmas tree, and it had lights where if one bulb went out, the whole string went out. We couldn’t keep replacing them, so sometimes by Christmas, the tree wasn’t lit anymore.

“We didn’t have a lot of money, but we always, always had food on the table. My mother was a terrific cook, and we had fresh-baked bread every day. We would all have a big Christmas dinner. It was a wonderful place to be at the time.”

1930s

Mary McManus, 83, moved to Oak Park with her family when she was 3 years old and lived there until about two and a half years ago. In her family, the Christmas season became a time of change, as her youngest brother was born just after Christmas in 1929, and her father’s mother was buried on Christmas Eve 1938, just two months after her father died. She will spend the holiday this year with her youngest brother, John, at his home in Deerfield.

“I remember very vaguely when we were very small that ‘Santa Claus’ would always put up the Christmas tree after we went to bed on Christmas Eve. My parents didn’t do that for long. In those days, the Christmas tree went out on the sun porch, which was unheated, but you could see it from the living room.

I had two older brothers, and then when I was 12, slightly after Christmas, another brother was born, so I was completely outnumbered. The trains always outnumbered the dolls under the Christmas tree. My dad worked for the railroad, so all my brothers played with trains.

On Christmas, we’d see my grandmothers, until my dad’s mother died at the age of 90 in 1938. She was buried on Christmas Eve in Iowa. Those days, they didn’t let the seminarians come home for Christmas, so I remember we had to take the train back from Iowa after burying her, and then my brother (the late Bishop William E. McManus) had to take the North Shore line back to Mundelein for midnight Mass.

“That was probably the saddest Christmas for me and my mother, but we kept the traditions up.

“We always went sometime in the day to my aunt’s home—my mother’s sister. Sometimes my father’s family came to our home early on, for an early dinner, and then we’d have another one with grandmother on my mother’s side and my aunts.

“There were 12 cousins, and to this day, we are still close, the 10 of us who are left.

“Back in those days, there was no midnight Mass because Cardinal Mundelein thought there might be abuses, so the first Mass was at 5 a.m. My parents usually went with my brother, who became the bishop, because he had to serve. I don’t think they were really happy the year after my little brother was born when they came back, and my brother and I said we heard the baby crying, so we had to take him downstairs to look at the Christmas tree. If he was crying, it was only a whimper.

“Christmas was very much a family-oriented holiday.”

John Mamon, 79, was one five children growing up in a Polish family in Bridgeport. He remembers the threat of coal in the stocking for children who misbehaved—but the only time it ever showed up, he said, was as a practical joke from one of his brothers. He will spend Christmas this year with his son’s family in Glenview.

“Usually Christmas Eve, it would be a complete family gathering around the dining room table. Everybody would have a candle lit in front of them, and everybody would have a taste of wine.

“It was called ‘Wigilia,’ and it was a big tradition. There would be no meat served. There was usually a select portion of fish, rice and stewed prunes, buttered lima beans and a kind of a fish stew.

“There was a bread wafer, a kind of unleavened bread, and the oldest person there would break off a piece and pass it around until everyone had a piece. It was to show that the Bread of Life was coming at Christmas with Jesus, and it really was quite meaningful.

“There were some prayers, some caroling, and then we all gathered around the Christmas tree.

“We were lucky if we got one or two very nice presents, like a little fire truck or a Lionel train, and we had to wait until Christmas morning for them.

“It still is a family gathering, but the traditions are different now.”

1940s

Elaine Gatz, 72, grew up in a typical German-American home, where Christmas was filled with prayers and wonderful spices:

"My parents came from a little town called Krefeld in the Rhineland and the crib was a "must" at Christmas. Ours was made in Italy, rather large and we put it up every year. The figures stood about eight inches high, with a camel, its tender; a cow, sheep, shepherds, angels, the Wise Men with Mary and Joseph. Putting Baby Jesus into the crib was always a beautiful ritual on Christmas morning. He never went in until then.

We also celebrated St. Nicholas Day, Dec. 6, when we would polish our shoes and put them outside our bedroom door. If you hadn't been good, you did get sticks and stones in your shoes instead of candies!

My mother traditionally made sauerbraten for Christmas dinner. Another favorite was her special cookies called “speclatius.” They were filled with delicious spices like cinnamon, ground almonds, mace and nutmeg. We have handed down the recipe to this day.

But Christmas Mass was always the high point. The most memorable for me was Midnight Mass, Christmas Eve in 1944 at Our Lady of Solace Church in Chicago. My brother, Father Paul Grueter, was a subdeacon and was going to be assisting our pastor, Msgr. Martin Nealis on the altar. It would be the first time my family and I received Holy Communion from him, but there was a problem. Because the Mass would be crowded, you needed an admission ticket. My parents only had two. Thanks to the generosity of a school friend, her family gave us their two tickets so my sister and I could be there. My brother was ordained the following March and later became vice-chancellor for the Archdiocese of Kansas."

1950s

The 50s was the decade of speed and convenience, expressways and tailfin cars inspired by the P-38. Patricia Ahern Prince remembers the Christmas of 1951 that reflected the era.

“I was in eighth grade and sang in the choir but there was no Midnight Mass that year. The first Christmas Mass was at 5 or 6 a.m. and there had been a very heavy snowfall on Christmas Eve. Our family only lived two long blocks and two short blocks from church, but that was apparently too far I guess for my parents. Instead we walked to the “L” station at 63rd and Halsted streets and grabbed a taxi! That Christmas morning was the first time I ever rode in a cab!