"Matthew Stafford just spent his first Christmas in Detroit. His family joined him. For the first time in his life, snow covered -- at least partly -- the ground.

"It was great," Stafford said.

It was, he added, as memorable a Christmas as any he has had.

Fullback Jerome Felton's best Christmas started the night before, when his mother let him and his family open all the presents on Christmas Eve. Linebacker Zack Follett's most memorable Christmas was the time he got a Vikings helmet and a Daunte Culpepper jersey. He said he was 12. Culpepper was a rookie. Somehow, Culpepper turned Follett into a Vikings fan even though he lived in Fresno, Calif.

"Great Christmas," Follett said.

Perhaps the most interesting Christmas story surely belongs to Jim Schwartz, who grew up in Baltimore among nine kids.

"It was like Toys 'R' Us," he said.

But that isn't what stands out. This is: "I was working for the Cleveland Browns and I'd gone home on the 23rd. I had flown back to Baltimore. I was there Christmas Eve night and Christmas day morning. Then I had a flight back to Cleveland -- at 10 a.m., I think -- then we had a flight to California, where we were playing the Rams.

"So I flew into Cleveland. Baltimore was 45 and sunny. Cleveland had 6-8 inches of snow on the ground. It was the first white Christmas I remember. It was a little bit surreal.

"From there we flew into Anaheim."

Schwartz was a scout in those days and didn't have to be at meetings like coaches usually do the night before a game. So he and a few other staff members were sitting around the hotel in Anaheim, Calif., when they decided to go get something to eat. They were near Disneyland.

It was late, maybe 10 p.m. And they were hungry. Schwartz had a plan."