Christmas Memories

Christmas is my favorite time of year.I think it's partly because my Mom and Dad made it so much fun when I was a kid. Mom especially worked hard to make it a magical time. Dad's contribution was to read us the Christmas story from the Bible on Christmas eve. Then he would read "The Night Before Christmas" to us, making it up as he went along. I particularly remember the line " Away to the window I flew like a flash, tore open the shutters and fell out on my ass!"
One year Mom took us to Rikes in downtown Dayton to Tykes which was a place children could shop for gifts for their parents. I remember I spent 25 cents and bought my Mom a handkerchief which I wrapped in an empty metal bandaid box. Typical boy- my brother way overspent and had to put lots of things back.We sneaked peaks at what we had gotten each other. He got me a plastic bird that came with paints for you to paint it. It was pretty cool.
Mom and Dad always hid the presents- wrapped- on the very top shelf in their closet. We could hardly wait for them to go outside or somewhere so we could snoop. We would get a chair and stack things til we could climb up and reach the gifts.I'm surprised none of us ever broke our necks. My sister would be the lookout person.Then it was my job to carefully unwrap each thing. We would look at the stuff then I would carefully wrap them back up. I was REALLY good at it. They never caught on.
We kids would wake up at about 4 AM on Christmas morning, grab our stockings and usually all climb into my bed and dump them out. There were always chocolate gold coins which were a big hit. I remember Mom and Dad were always grumpy because they had stayed up late putting something together. But we were always  all up by at least 6 AM. The excitement was too much!
Switch to 30 years later- I'M still excited but MY children wouldn't wake up early! I always had to go wake them up!! I couldn't wait!  They did not like that...One year I made a trail of candy kisses from their bedrooms to the Christmas tree. That was fun. I  always love trying to find new ways to surprise everyone!