or Childhood Christmas Memories
Kris suggested in the comments a couple of days ago that maybe I could write about some childhood Christmas memories when I said that I was finding it hard to post every day. Below I'm rerunning a post about just that. This was written after a trip to my mother's house. She had passed away only a few months earlier and we were in the process of going through things. As many of you know, it was a bittersweet process.
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I am thankful for childhood
Christmas memories.
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| Our Christmas socks hung on our steps since we didn't have a fireplace. |
As we have been going through some of the Christmas decorations from my mother's house, I've been thinking about Christmastime when I was a child. Christmas was a magical then. The anticipation of Christmas was very exciting and the whole idea of Santa was so grand it was almost more than I could handle.
The excitement of the Christmas season began after Thanksgiving when the stores started to decorate and the Sears Wish Book came in the mail. I would study the catalog thinking about what I would ask Santa for. Santa was very busy so he didn't always make it to my town, but I would write him letters. When I did get to talk to him, I really did believe that his reindeer were parked behind the store as I was told, although I never saw them.
Each year, I watched the evening news on Christmas Eve because they would report a strange object on their
radar that looked like a sled being pulled by flying reindeer. I did this every year even long after I knew the truth about Santa because that blip on the radar still held its enchantment.
After watching the news and knowing that Santa was on his way, my sisters and I would start preparing for bed. We would take the toaster and bread and butter with us upstairs so we could have breakfast in the morning without going down to the kitchen. We were not allowed downstairs, where the tree was, until my aunt and uncle arrived. As soon as we caught the first glance of their car, we would rush downstairs to see what Santa had brought. He always left one unwrapped present for each of us.
Even though Christmas celebrations have changed over the years and my excitement has mellowed, I can still remember how I felt when I was six years old. And for that, I am thankful.
