Holy Rosary School, Medford (courtesy of medfordcluster.weconnect.com/school)

Editor’s note: Sixth graders at Holy Rosary School, Medford, were asked to write about their Christmas memories. Laura Beyer, a teacher and assistant principal at the school, shared some of them with the Catholic Herald.

Trevor wrote:
My story is about a present I got from my grandma.  I cannot remember how long ago it was, but I think it was two or three years ago when it happened.  It was Christmas Day and we were opening gifts from my family. There was this one Skylanders game I wanted that year and I hoped I would get it from my grandma. One of my presents looked about that size and I decided to open it. Then, to my surprise, it was Extreme Chores. I knew I had to be thankful so I tried to smile. It came out like a very, very awkward smile when my mom took the picture. Then I realized there was tape on the box and thought that it was strange to be on a new box. So I ripped the tape off and inside was the video game I wanted — inside the box!  I found out it was a trick box and my grandma and my family laughed.

Vincent wrote:
I remember one day during Christmas vacation we were all playing with our presents. My brother and I had gotten army soldiers were playing under the Christmas tree. After a while of playing, my brother went behind the tree with his soldiers. He was trying to find the best hiding place to ambush me. All of a sudden he went too far back and almost knocked the entire tree down.  Lucky for us only a few ornaments fell, so we put them back on quickly before my mom saw.

Aiyana wrote:
One year my parents said that we were going to get a dog for Christmas. There was one problem though. There was a blizzard on the day we were going to pick the dog up. I got scared during the car ride, but I managed to keep it together. When we got there we saw our new dog through the window of the car of his old owners. He was so CUTE. I said to my mom, ‘What are we going to name him?” Mom said that his name as Boomer but that we could name him something else if we wanted to. My sister, brother and I said we liked that name so we kept Boomer. Boomer was really scared when we first got him and he even pooped in the car right in front of my sister. We just kept telling him things would be OK. When we got home almost everyone started taking pictures of him because he was so cute.

A few weeks after Christmas we took Boomer to the vet because he was throwing up and not eating. The vet said he has Addison’s Disease and that if he doesn’t take pills each day he would be crabby and could die. I was scared, but we caught the disease early and we give him his pills. Boomer is now the cutest and most perfect dog for our family.

Lucas L. wrote:
My grandparents used to hire a Santa who would stay outside on the roof of their house with a sleigh so everyone could see him when they came over.  All of my cousins, aunts and uncles would come to my grandparents’ house to see the Santa. We would go to their basement and sit on the fireplace mantle, a couch, a table, and a recliner. There were about 27 people there. We would play bingo for a gift exchange. After our gift exchange, Santa would stomp on the roof, bring his sleigh to where it could be seen, and then he would go down a ladder and go inside with a big velvet bag. He would sit in a special chair and have all the children, us, sit on his lap. We would tell Santa what we wanted and he would pull it out of his bag. I remember one time when I was five or six, I got “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and I was overjoyed. Then we got our presents from our grandparents. After we got our presents, we would play with them for about two or three hours with my cousins, who are at least 10 years older than me. After all that we would go home and I would play with my brother with all my toys that I got for Christmas.