The Holiday Season

When I was a youngin' I would have a countdown until the holidays, especially Christmas. December was the best month of the year and I couldn't wait to spend time with family and wake up on Christmas morning anticipating what Santa brought us.

Here was our Holiday tradition when my brother and I were children.

On Christmas Eve day we would go over Grandma Dot's house and spend the afternoon eating delicious appetizers and playing with the cousins. We would always have the best time. I would stare in awe at the pile of gifts that stood upon the fireplace in the living room of her house wondering how in the world all of the perfectly wrapped gifts could fit in that small space. It was like a child's dream. I seperated the gifts and put them into piles, a pile each for Robert, Me, Ryan, David, Angelo, Andrew, Anthony, Adam, My mom and dad, Uncle David and Auntie Lena, Uncle Bobby and Auntie Kim and Uncle Al and Auntie Donna. (and in the years to come more piles for Haley, Rocco, Milania, Robert & Jacqui). But when I was young - a kid it was the grandest time. We would sit by the gifts waiting for the adults to come to their senses and come into the room for us to open them. When they finally came in we would go from youngest to oldest (and the next year from oldest to youngest) and each open one gift and then the rotation would start over again.

Once we opened all of our gifts and talked and played for more time my mom, dad brother and I would leave to go to Grandma Jennie's house for another exciting time. Adam and I would sit and watch TV and bother our parents asking when Auntie Shirley, Uncle Leon, Becky and Ben were going to get there - as they were ALWAYS late! Then they'd come and we'd play for a while and then sit at the kids table and pretend to drink wine (which was really apple cider - we did this at all of our holiday functions when with each other). Then we'd have to rotate each year between me and Becky and Adam and Ben as to who would do the dishes. Somehow every year Ben and Adam would weasel their way out of it and Becky and I would always have to do the dishes...(same thing at Thanksgiving, Ben and Adam always got the wishbone damn boys!) So then we would bug our parents, Grandma, Grandpa, Tia and each other about opening gifts. It would take forever (well not forever, but in our young impatient minds it would feel like it).

Once gifts were opened we'd play with whatever we received and have a blast. We would vow to call each other the next morning to tell what we got from Santa and we left, where all the way home Adam and I would peer out the windows into the black night looking for any glimpse of the red sleigh with eight reindeer.

Once home we would rush to put our PJ's on and jump into bed, but not before promising each other that if one of us woke up before the other we would wake that person up and then wake up our parents to go to where Santa left the gifts. But there was one rule...we couldn't wake up before 6am. And of course I would always open my eyes when it was still pitch black out and look at the clock...it would only be 3am and the excitement of the knowledge that just in the other room lay a pile of toys from Santa and I couldn't for the life of me fall back asleep. So I would lay in bed with my eyes closed and pretend to sleep until the clock read 6:00am and I would run in and wake up my brother and we would both jump on our parents bed to get their butts up!

We would pull mom and dad down the hallway into the living room and each ran to our gifts, which were seperated so we knew whose were whose. My gifts were always on the two chairs and leaning against the table between them and Adam's gifts were sprawled across the couch. We would be so wide awake with amazement and excitement. We would take inventory in our heads and yell at our parents as to what we got. We would play and have fun and then go back to sleep for a little while and then play some more. We called Becky and Ben as promised and we relayed what we got.

Later in the day we would head on over to wherever my Grandma Dot was (either at Uncle David & Auntie Lena's house or Uncle David and Auntie Donna's house) and we would have dinner there.

Now Christmas isn't that big of a deal. It's fun getting gifts for my younger cousins - Haley, Rocco and Milania...as they are adorable, but as for playing, I miss being a kid.