My fondest memory as a little kid was hanging out in my friend James's apartment. He had an elaborate electric train set that took up the entire floor of their living room--not an el-cheapo Marx set, but a Lionel with smoke-producing locomotive, whistles, RR crossings, etc. His family also had an elaborate tree, with bubbling electric candles (anyone remember them?).

Worst memories from workplace:
--Secretaries would bring in box radios on the Monday after T'giving and play the same Christmas songs over and over again for eight hours straight, until after the holiday.
--The boss's Christmas party: It'd call for noon at a private room in a local restaurant. People would filter in until about 1 p.m. Then the one waitress they assigned to our big group would start taking drink orders. She wouldn't take lunch orders until about 2:30. We wouldn't actually get our lunches until 4. Killed the entire afternoon, just waiting around in forced bonhomie, pretending that we actually wanted to be there.