Christmas Memories

..It’s midnight. It’s now Christmas. The computer ie next to the Christmas tree, and I can see the colored lights out of the corner of my eye.

I remember Christmas eve when I was little. . . After dinner, we got to open one present, we oculd chose one from under the tree, and sometimes my mom would ahve a special little present we could open. My brother and I always got new pajamas on Christmas eve to ware to bed and to ware Christmas morning. (Never so thrilled with those, they were always cute but very, very itchy). . . We got to stay up to 9 before mom would send us to bed. . . I would sit in my bed, looking out the window as long as I could, trying to see Santa fly across the sky. I always had my radio on, listening to the shows reporting on Santa’s progress across the world, the recordings from differet airports of sleighbells on radar. I would try to listen for Santa downstairs . .but I never stayed awake long enough

I remember Christmas morning, being hearded past the front room of our house where the tree was, sometimes our parents covered our eyes so we wouldn’t look at the tree, and we headed right into the family room to open our stockings first. We tried so hard not to rip through them to get straight to the presents under the tree. As silly as it seems, we always got a new toothbruch in our stockings, I tihnk now if I didn’t get one, I would probably be slightly heartbroken . . .

Surprizingly, I remember a lot of control on mine and my brother’s parts in only opening one present at a time, and then waiting for someone else to open one. We each had a certain place we sat in the living room, nothing really planned or a tradition or anything, we just sat in the same place every year.

What stays with me as I got older was the excitment of seeing my family open the presents I got for them, watching them to see if I really did get them something they would like.

I remember also when I was older, when my parents still knew what I liked to read, sitting curled up with whatever new books I got for hours reading. Forget electronics and everything else – books made me happier than anything, and still do.

..It’s been Christmas for 15 minutes now. I find myself listening to see if my parents are awake, I wonder how many Christman Eves they spent listening for two tiny heads on pillows, for the even breathing of little kids…

Good Night, Sleep Tight – Don’t let the bed-bugs bite.

Merry Christmas everyone.