Christmas Memories

As with most people, this time of year comes with a flood of memories for me.
One of the best things about the holidays is sitting around with family and sharing memories of Christmas past. With my family, the sharing usually consists of embarrassing or funny stories.
For instance, there was the year it was my turn to hang the angel on the Christmas tree.
Every year we have an angel on top of our family tree instead of the traditional star.
There are pictures of my little sister on my dad’s back stretching to reach the top of the tree to place the angel in its rightful place.
There is no picture with me stretching to place the angel on the tree. This is because when it was my year, I felt the necessity to keep the angel with me at all times.
This meant, I walked around with the angel, ate with the angel and, you guessed it, went to the bathroom with the angel.
My memory is fuzzy how it happened but somehow, an attempt to escape from me or a desire to go for a swim caused the angel to leap from my hands and land in the toilet bowl.
There was no angel on the Christmas tree that year and for several years my father was my surrogate angel placer. I don’t remember how old I was when it happened, but I know I couldn’t have been older than 17.
There was also the year the coveted toy for my little sister was the board game “Don’t Wake Daddy.”
She would tear open each present hoping to see those words on every box.
Finally, when the magical moment happened where she opened the box to reveal the game she began jumping up and down yelling “Don’t wake Daddy! Don’t wake —.”
The pause was the moment she became so overwhelmed with joy she released the contents of her stomach all over her game and the presents surrounding it.
This led to my brother and I to almost lose the content of our stomachs from laughing so hard ­— we were good brothers, I know.
One particular Christmas memory is something my parents and siblings love to remind me of whenever we are opening gifts.
I was a persistent child and when I heard the word “no” I took it to mean, “ask me again in five minutes.” During one Christmas, my parents had placed a few Christmas presents under the tree on Christmas Eve before Santa could visit that evening.
I begged and begged my parents to allow us to open just one gift on Christmas Eve. Sticklers for tradition, my parents refused.
However, I had the special ability of endurance, which they did not possess.
I asked several times throughout the night and finally wore them down to allow one gift on Christmas Eve. I was thrilled and ran to grab the first present I could with my name on it.
Because I was the annoying one, I was told I could open mine third. I impatiently waited for my brother and sister to open their gifts.
I don’t remember what they got, but I remember them liking it.
After a lecture on how I shouldn’t get a turn because I had pestered my parents so much, I tore into my gift.
Inside, I found a package of undershirts — which had been wrapped as a Christmas gift by mistake.
My family rolled on the floor with laughter. The one thing I had begged and begged for all day had been a package of undershirts.
To this day, every Christmas I can find a set of undershirts underneath the Christmas tree with my name on them. We were allowed to open one gift every Christmas Eve after that year, but my mother picked out which ones we could open and mine usually ended up being socks or undershirts. One year she went all out and got me a package of batteries.
I love my family.
I love talking about Christmas memories because no matter what is happening in your life, you can remember the happy times you spent with your family.
While my little sister may not be making the best decisions with her life and infuriating me as a big brother, she is still my little sister. She is still the little girl throwing up all over her present because she is so overcome with excitement because of a board game.
Thank God for Christmas memories. I hope all of you make great ones with your family every year. Merry Christmas.