Tis the Season

Well, friends, it’s that time of year again. Time to hang stockings, drink egg nog , and buy gifts that will likely be immediately returned in exchange for store credit. With each passing year I’ve found that the excitement of the holiday season has become less and less encompassing. If Christmas was a faucet, my level of “cheer” would be equivalent to a trickle. It’s not because I’m a Grinch or Scrooge - I appreciate the meaning of Christmas and enjoy the spirit of helping others that comes with the season…it’s just that as a child I would count down the days, the hours and the minutes until the magical day and lose sleep over the whole thing. I miss that.

In the spirit of reflecting on such times, I’ve put together some of my favorite childhood memories of Christmas. ( You should know that if I still had jammies with feet, I’d be wearing them right now.)

• 8 years old - I received “Home Alone” for Christmas from my grandparents on Christmas Eve, had the entire movie memorized by New Years and proudly recorded myself reciting the lines to the entire movie into my Sony ghetto blaster shortly thereafter.
• 9 years old - My family went to Idaho for Christmas. My legs were growing so fast that none of my pants fit right (yes, they had zippers and bows on the bottoms - and they were tapered). My aunt and uncle gave me a battery operated crawling troll doll. It was my favorite toy.
• Every year on Christmas Eve my entire family would gather and exchange gifts. My great aunt would always tell dirty jokes, which made me very uncomfortable.
• Until the age of about 13, my sister and I would get a rather lengthy letter from Santa on Christmas morning outlining our good behavior for the year. I always wondered how he had that kind of time - what with the whole “visiting millions of houses in one night” thing.
• On Christmas morning, my mom would turn on the local CBS station, which played holiday music recorded by local high school choirs. The whole production was taped in a mall. We ate cheesy eggs and Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls for breakfast while trying to spot people that we knew.
• Starting at about the age of 10, my sister and I would wait until my parents left the house and open all of our presents. We would ever-so-carefully untape the end of the package until we could either read what was on the box or open the edge and slip the item out. After inspecting each gift we would slide it back into the wrapping paper and retape the end. If we suspected that there were other presents hidden about the house, we would hunt for them, take mental note of what we uncovered and pinky promise that neither of us would squeal. This practice may or may not continue to this day.

I would continue, but I've got to start thinking about what I'll buy with all of the store credit that I will soon have. Ahh, the holidays!

(Oh, if you're wondering...I'm getting a new pair of jeans, a Nora Ephron book, a Mitch Albom book, a medium sized brown purse, and with any luck a generous Starbucks giftcard in my stocking. And I'm sure my mom will throw in a random piece of silver jewelry to "surprise" me.)