Christmas Eve is supposed to be fantastic, filled with eggnog, stocking-stuffers and Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers singing about love, Christmas style.
Not for me. Well, I had the eggnog, and the Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers tunes, but fantastic? More like nightmarish.
Christmas Eve for me meant sitting in front of the television watching Christmas specials - usually the Smurfs Christmas or The Chipmunks. Or that blasted Dolly Parton Kenny Rogers special. Now I understand why my father enjoyed watching Dolly sing. And then there was the other option, staring up the trunk of the artificial tree we had every christmas from birth till my teens. Counting the lights, losing track of my count because one flashed off, my eyes crazy from staring, darting off in another direction. Recount the lights. Annnnd one, two, three....
Once I was summoned to bed, seeping was impossible. Not when there were things lurking in the hall, just outside my bedroom door.
Every year during my unknowing and uninformed youth, I'd lay in my bed staring down the dark hall way, covers pulled up to my nose, sweating, wide awake - watching those figures float up and down the hall, in and out of rooms. Gone, there, gone, there again. No matter how hard I tried to focus on these figures, all I could see were those bright little stars; a result from staring at the on off, on off, on and off again christmas tree lights, flickering away. But they were there. Who, or what, was it?
I'd eventually fall asleep and wake up to a quiet house hours later. My view of the christmas tree down the hall was good enough to see the pile of gifts, sending me flying down the hall to dig through and form my inventory pile.
Mine were easy to spot, the ones marked "To: Jenny, From: Santa" written in a penmanship much like my fathers. All caps. And written nervously, with a shake.
I finally caught on when my father told me go into his desk drawer to retrieve "the one from him" and I noticed the writing on the tag, miraculously the same as the ones from Santa.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Christmas in September, huh? Sounds like you had interesting holidays growing up! Kinda wouldn't want to trade you. lol. Although, I do have to admit to having to suffer through Dolly and Kenny as well. I feel ya on that one.
Read further back to see that my posts are past stories, reflections if you may, have no relationship with the day they are posted on.
Christmas in September, what a thought. ;)
Post a Comment