My brother Johnny and I always opened our gifts on Christmas Eve–a German tradition. Our father had many hobbies and one of his favorites was HO-Gauge model railroading. We always had a train circling our Christmas tree. It enabled such great entertaining and imaginative play for us for many years at Christmastime. It was magical and captivating.

In our basement, our dad had an extensive train set on a huge table that we played with throughout the year and at Christmas. We loved all the model trains but also the ability to create entire miniature worlds with homes, stores, mountains, towns, people , trees, and rivers. These train sets were a lifelong passion of my dad and Johnny. They passed on their appreciation for this hobby to my 2 children into their adulthood, creating lasting memories for our entire family.