Some of my favorite memories are the times I got video game systems. Most notibly the Sega Genesis and z scale trains I got in '94/'95/'96 (not sure the exact year, I was very young) and GameBoy Color in '99. I got a Xbox in '01, Xbox 360 in '05; but they didn't quite have the same "magic" that they had when I was young. Also as a young kid, watching the Rankin Bass stop motion movies on the days leading up to Christmas. Then talking with my brother and sister while we tried (failed) to sleep on Christmas Eve, watching more and more obscure Christmas cartoons and whatever else would come on TV late on Christmas Eve night/Christmas morning.
The best non-Christmas morning memories were just random times I was at family Christmas parties or gatherings. Seeing aunts, uncles, and cousins dancing talking having fun. As a kid, we used to have the parties at family homes, which was always fun and super memorable. Later we moved to a hall as the family got bigger and cousins started to bring their children, in laws, and friends. I can't really point out any particular memory as good; just all the time spent with family, not necessarily caring about what else was going on in the world at the time.
My grandmother broke the Christmas gift rules with my parents and got my brother and I a NES, Tetris, duck hunt with the gun, and I believe the Olympics with the power mat. Christmas windfall I’ll never forget, seeing my parents faces drop as we opened all those games and just ignored every other present. Grandma had a nack for tweaking my mom any way she could, one of the meanest people I’ve ever met in my life but this year our interests aligned.
My mom was enthralled by Tetris, better at the game than anyone in the house by a good 10 levels, and basically impossible to depose from the controller. I think it softened the blow with Grandma.
There were quite a few I'll never remember the name of, but there were a lot of different renditions of A Christmas Carol with unknown characters on Cartoon Network or some other kids channel. I definitely remember Christmas Comes to Pac-Land[1], 'Twas the Night Before Christmas[2], A Jetson Christmas Carol[3], and one of the Flitstone Christmas episodes where they were acting in a play.
The best non-Christmas morning memories were just random times I was at family Christmas parties or gatherings. Seeing aunts, uncles, and cousins dancing talking having fun. As a kid, we used to have the parties at family homes, which was always fun and super memorable. Later we moved to a hall as the family got bigger and cousins started to bring their children, in laws, and friends. I can't really point out any particular memory as good; just all the time spent with family, not necessarily caring about what else was going on in the world at the time.