Writing Prompt: When you think of your childhood Christmases, what is the most vivid memory you have?

My friend is still scanning my photos, so today's another photo-less writing prompt (unless you have a photo to go along with your vivid memory; if so, lucky you!). I think the most vivid memories have two separate connections that keep them strong: a sensory connection and an emotional one. If that holds true for you, include those details in the telling.

Surprisingly enough, my most vivid memory isn't connected with the Christmas-morning gift-opening frenzy (although I have some fond memories of that event!). I wrote yesterday about our Christmas-Eve dinners at my grandparents' house, and my most vivid memory is connected to that. I'm not sure how old I was when this happened, but I was definitely younger than six, because I still believed in Santa. Sometime during the evening, it had started to snow, and when we started getting ready to leave, we discovered inches & inches piled up on everything. I think this is the only time we had a Christmas-Eve snow during my childhood. I'm not sure what my mom was doing, but my sisters and I stood outside on the balcony, watching the snow fall down through the sky, illuminated by Christmas lights. In this memory, my sisters are like shadows behind my dad and me; it's mostly just the two of us, watching the snow fall, looking up, and then suddenly the magic happened: we heard sleigh bells. Maybe that is what my mom was doing? I don't really want to understand how the magic was made. I just want to remember that moment: cold air and falling snow, the warm yellow light from the open door behind us, being small enough to feel safe in my dad's arms, the sound of bells and the absolute certainty that everything impossible really exists.