Is It Naptime Yet

My friend Anna recently did a posts on Christmas memories and I made a little comment because she asked us to comment on our favorite Christmas memories. Here’s my comment:

My favorite has always been sneaking out to see the tree at night after Santa had come and eating one or two treats from my stocking. I loved sitting and looking at the lit tree with all the lights out.

I may actually not put the child’s gate up this year and maybe my girls will enjoy this too, though in some ways they are so good it might take a year or two.

So this year I’m going to relinquish some power and not put up the child’s gate. Jon doesn’t like them sneaking and poking around, so he’s thinking of maybe putting up a curtain, so they can peak out the curtain, but hopefully not go past it. This is a tradition his family has and as a child he never actually went past the curtain, just peeked. I find this somewhat amazing, but I think my girls would take after him since they do have a tendency to really respect what we ask them to do.

Taking Anna’s lead I want to share some of my favorite Christmas memories.:

Staying up late waiting for Santa to come.

Exchanging gifts with my siblings.

My dad driving us around to go look at Christmas lights so Mom could wrap presents. I think of my Dad whenever we look at lights with my girls. Their enthusiasm reminds me of my own.

Picking out Christmas tree’s with my dad each year. I always went with him and got the last say. I don’t know if he taught me well or just made it feel like I picked the perfect one each year. Every once-in-a-while another sister got to come along, which I didn’t like too much, but I still got the last say.

Making decorated sugar cookies for my friends.

Our Christmas Tree Angel. My parents have the perfect angel for their tree, just simple, not extravagant with big wings. I wish I could find one just like it.

Our house on Base decorated with lights and a manger scene.

Silent Night, and not knowing if my sister’s catholic boyfriend knew the song. I can  be a bit air-heady at times.

The one Christmas I didn’t wake up in the middle of the night and had gotten a new bike.

Turning out all the lights and watching the Christmas tree glimmer with it’s lights on.

One year my dad set up the camera to record for 2 or so seconds every 10 or so seconds and we watched as we peeked in the presents and our bodies appeared at different places in the room.

Wrapping presents that my dad bought my mom.

5 years or so of plain red and green wrapping paper my dad had gotten somewhere. We wrapped the new computer in it the first year and it lasted f.o.r.e.v.e.r. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was still some hanging around or if my mom just tossed it.

My dad being able to return things, but us having to keep things we didn’t like unless they didn’t fit or were broken.

Peeking around for where the Christmas gifts were hid.

Unwrapping gifts once in a while and re-wrapping them.

Learning mom’s secret code on how to tell what gift belonged to who since it had no name tag. Lets just say each of our names start with different letters and D was for Dad, since our names both start with L.

What are some of your favorite Christmas memories?

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 1:15 pm and is filed under Family, Friends, holidays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.