Who grew up a seasonal (Christmas time) operator?

[emdmike]

How many of us grew up as a seasonal operator?  Only having the trains out at Christmas time, usualy due to lack of space for a dedicated layout.   I myself grew up this way for many years till we moved to a house with a basement, at which time I built a 4x6 Lionel layout with a friend of mine. Now my Lionel operation is back to mostly seasonal with my outdoor G scale taking up most of my time during the warmer months, I also have G around the ceiling in our living room.  But I am slowly making the switch back to year round Lionel operation again.   Back to seasonal operation.  Between myself and my best friend, we both had huge layouts under the family Christmas tree.  His layout sported his dads 681 and 736 steamers on a double track loop.  Mine sported my MPC era 2-4-2 steamer and a Western Pacific Alco FA diesel.  When I went to my grandparents house to celebrate the holiday, my fathers Lionel set from 1949 was set up under the tree.   It is this set that I still have and run every Christmas time.   Over the years I have owned many of Lionels finest engines, being the shop mechanic had its perks.  From first choice on trade in engines to the fact I was paid in store credit.  That era is gone, but I am slowly finding it again!     Mike

[Major]

Interesting for me we NEVER had the trains under the Christmas tree. Not enough room!  However my father did bring out the trains about four times a year for us to watch and eventually run as my sister and I got older. 

[rtraincollector]

When growing up we had a HO set around the tree until I was 8 when My father brought home a super O set with the B&M 2359 he bought it used but that was all it wrote from that point on it was what went around the tree until I went to into the navy at which point parents moved and got a place with a basement and I built a 5' x 9' layout down there for Dad 

[stebbycentral]

When I was a very young child we only saw the American Flyer train set at Christmas.  They were still "dad's trains", and spent most of the rest of the year in boxes in the basement.  About the time I started school however, my dad went to the trouble of laying down an extended oval of track with a single siding on a sheet of green 4 x 8 plywood mounted on table legs.  He also constructed a crude unpainted plywood tunnel at one end.  I don't know if he ever intended to do anything more with the layout, but for whatever reason that's where it all stopped.  That is also about the point in time that it started to become "my" train.  And for a year or so I had my own official Plywood Central.

It didn't last however, as our expanding family (2 boys and 4 girls)  necessitated that my brother's and my bedroom be relocated to the very area of the basement where the "layout" stood.  So the track and the plywood came up and the train went back in the boxes.  Not such a sad ending though, the train set now became floor trains, where my brother, sisters, and I would construct fantastic villages of building blocks, and Lincoln logs in the middle of the basement floor, and run the train through it.

I would be a teenager before I was able to construct a proper layout again.  This was in a different house, and in a different scale; N. 

[lynbrookyankee]

Living in a small apartment in NYC my Lionel trains made an annual appearance at Christmas time. My collection grew to take up the whole living room which my mother gave up for 1 month every year (I anxiously awaited the day we would take them out of the closet and my father would spend the day setting them up). Somehow Mom managed to clean around the tracks (now I understand why the "coal" in my hopper car was kept in a sealed plastic bag).

[insfil]

Well, every Christmas, like clockwork, the Christmas tree would be put up in early December, decorated and finally the big moment when the set of Lionel Jr. train set made its appearence under the tree along with the snow covered town and citizens. Magic, pure magic, a sight that is imprinted in my memory forever.

Sad was the day in early January when all would come down and put away until the next Christmas season.

Now I have Christmas and snow all year round on my P & A railroad and can enjoy pass and present moments and memories as  the trains roll by.

And that old Lionel Jr. set that came out once a year is still around and occupies a place of honor on a shelf looking down at all action below, and of course every now and then it runs around the pike for old times sake!