Christmas Memories

As a boy, I had such a hard time going to sleep on Christmas eve. It was the anticipation, the mystery, the not-knowing-and-still-hoping that the gifts I had asked for would be delivered.

One year it was a record player. And then the English Racer bicycle. My favorite year was the one that I got my electric guitar and amplifier from Montgomery Wards. It was a deep red solid body guitar, and the amp had a "tremelo" feature on it that you could activate with a push-button pedal. So cool.

No, it wasn't easy falling asleep with so many important uncertainties floating through your mind. But somehow, after tossing and turning and knowing I would never go to sleep again, I drifted off. Things happened shortly after that, and I was oblivious to the events until the next morning.

When I woke up, in the wee hours of a winter morning, when it was still gray outside, I would creep into the living room to see the splendid display that Santa had left for us. An electric excitement equivalent to power the lights on our tree coursed through my veins on those Christmas mornings which now seem so long ago, but yet still so near.

Time passed. I watched our son go through the same wonder and surprise on his childhood Christmas mornings. And I shared them with him, along with my wife. I couldn't help remembering my own childhood Christmases as I watched him enjoying his.

And today, I'm certain he shared the same memories as he watched his two children, their eyes growing wide when they saw the new gifts under the tree—the gifts that weren't there when they went to bed the previous evening.

I'm guessing the same memories are being shared all over the world on this day. I hope yours are as wonderful as they were when you were a child.