Nostalgia sets in for most of us during the holidays, especially around Christmastime.

It includes those memories we all miss. Everybody has some, or at least one.

Think about it: There has to be at least one single time in your life that you wish you could go back and relive again.

If only for a moment.

It could be of a particular Christmas from your childhood, or a Christmas when you were the parent of a child who still believed in the magic of Santa Claus.

We all have that one memory for which we just can’t let go.

As you may recall, I am someone who chooses to live my life in a state of denial. I’ve intentionally blocked out certain aspects of my past. Therefore, I am unable to remember a great deal about growing up. The same goes for after I became an adult.

I have repressed so much that I probably couldn’t bring those times back to the surface even under hypnosis. And yet, there are certain memories that stay with me even after all of these years.

I miss these memories more than I can say.

For instance, I can remember when my brother and I would be allowed to look through the Sears catalogue and circle all of the items we wanted Santa to put underneath our tree.

We would spend countless hours skimming over the same pages until we were certain that every single item in that larger-than-life book had been glanced at.

No one looks through catalogues anymore. Children look online from their smartphone or tablet. They don’t create a list. They add it to their cart.

That isn’t the same, not at all.

Then, there was the infamous good list/bad list my mother taped to the side of the refrigerator for all the world to see. Well, maybe not the world, more like my brother and me. However, to a 6-year-old, it felt like the entire world.

Those two columns were looked at approximately 200 times a day between the two of us. Constantly checking to see if a check mark had been placed in the “good” column or if an “x” had been marked in the row that depicted we had been “bad.” That “x” broke my heart. My own mother was calling us out to Santa.

Of course, sometimes we were given a reprieve and she erased an “x” if we did something to make up for whatever it was we had done wrong.

I didn’t catch on back then, but there were always far more checks than there were x’s. And no matter how many negative marks that column held, we still received an appropriate amount of gifts.

Not once did we receive a lump of coal. Although the oranges Santa would sometimes place inside our stockings felt as if I had received a lump or two of the mineral.

Yes, it’s true. Most of us born during the 1970s and earlier would usually get a piece of fruit inside our stockings.

We excitedly woke up on Christmas morning only to find Lifesavers candy alongside that orange. And on certain Christmases, we were given an entire book of Lifesavers — and a candy cane.

If a child was given an orange, a pack of Lifesavers and a candy cane today, they would probably sue Santa.

Parents today put cell phones, headphones, gift cards and other expensive items inside their children’s stockings. I don’t understand it. And if you were to put a penny inside someone’s stocking now-a-days, as was the case many decades ago, you are merely setting yourself up for a very un-merry Christmas. If it isn’t at least a $20 bill, today’s children want no part of it.

Our society is spoiled. What happened to giving toys for Christmas? Actual toys like I received from Santa, like Lincoln Logs, Lite Brites, a Snoopy sno-cone machine, an Easy-Bake Oven?

Most boys don’t want a football anymore. Most girls don’t want a Barbie.

I also miss those old-fashioned Christmas trees you’d find in living rooms across the country during the 1960s and 1970s, the real ones you had to water or risk your house burning down in mere minutes.

And those large, multi-colored bulbs that turned extremely hot after you plugged them in? Those were no joke. They would become so hot that if you didn’t keep that tree watered, you stood a good chance of those dry thistles catching fire because of the scorching bulbs.

And icicles. No, not the outside kind made of snow, but the silvery ones made of tinsel that you would throw onto the hot bulbs on the dry tree.

Today, people would say a tree such as that is along the lines of child endangerment.

We just called it Christmas.

Did anyone have that aluminum tree that came out in the 1960s? You know, the one you weren’t allowed to put lights on because that would be too dangerous. (Rolling my eyes here.)

So, they devised that small, round multi-colored light you plugged in and pointed toward the tree to make it appear as if it was in color.

Yeah, that is like having a kitchen table and cutting out pictures of food for dinner.

But again, this particular tree could be someone’s memory. A time which they remember. And miss. I certainly will not be the person to take that away from them.

I miss real Christmas cards with hand-written messages. I do not want your e-card. Sorry.

We all have our memories of Christmases past.

Those moments — or even just one moment — that we will always remember as being something special.

My wish for you is to have that Christmas which you keep cherished in your heart.

Perhaps it is one filled with toys, a real Christmas tree, tons of Christmas cards delivered by the mailman, a good list/bad list filled with only check marks and a Sears, J.C. Penney or Montgomery Ward catalogue in which to browse your gift options. Whatever it is, I hope you make it a good one.

(Stenger is the community editor of the Herald-Star and The Weirton Daily Times.)