The Ghost of Christmas Past

Friday Wayne and I watched The Polar Express. It was really nice to spend time with him like that. Sure it's a cildrens movie but it's becoming a classic and aren't all just kids at heart anyway. However it did make me feel a little nostalgic.

I remember Christmas felt so magical as a child. We didn't worry about how we were going to pay bills and still buy figts for the family. My brother and I just knew that if we wrote a letter to Santa he would bring us exactly whatwe wanted.
It was so exciting to bake the perfect cookie on Christmas Eve because the store bought ones just wren't good enough for Santa. My brother and I could hardly wait for the time to come to get into our jammies and set ou the plate of cookies and milk for Santa and a carrot or two for his reindeer.
When bedtime finally came though we we're too excited t sleep and we'd lay awake for hours listening for Santa's sleigh bells or the pitter patter of reindeer hooves on roof.

But we never did manage to stay awake long enough because we dosed off for just a short time but in that time Santa always managed to arrive without a sound.


We'd wake up again long before time to get up and then sneak out to the tree, tip-toeing ever so quietly, so Mom wouldn't hear us, and sure enough the cookies and carrots were gone and milk glass sat there empty. Under the tree was the exact toy we had been wanting for months.

Mom would never let us open our gifts before 6am. She said she needed a little sleep-imagine sleeping on Christmas, adults were so strange back then-LOL. So we sit in either my room my brother's sometimes for a couple of hours waiting in anticipaton for the clock to hit 6. Then we would rush into Mom's room and jump on to her asking can we open gifts now. And she always managed to make us wait at least another half hour befor we actually made it to the tree.

I loved those days and sometimes I miss them but nowdays I enjoy sharing the magic of Christmas and some of the same family traditions with my children.