Christmas time comes around one a year. From my mother going around trying to make absolutely everything perfect for my brothers and sisters, to my father watching some football game on the television, everything had been going according to plan.
As a young child, nothing in the whole world could change your mind that Santa Claus, no matter what the older kids say, is real. Having that faith, that this Christmas figure is real, is what kept us so happy when it came to the season of the holidays. My brothers and sisters would smile and laugh about all the ways that we could think of Santa coming into our house. We often wondered whether Santa could even get charged for breaking and entering.
On Christmas Eve, my family has a tradition that we have been doing since I can remember. From youngest to oldest, we open only one present from our parents. Afterwards, we head off to bed, and sleep away the night. I can still remember my younger sister ALWAYS waking me up around seven o’clock in the morning, whispering: “Allie…Allie…Come on! Wake up! Santa has been here!” Finally, she would shake my whole bed until I got up. We would sneak down the stairs, as if we would get in trouble if we got caught, and look at all the beautiful lights on the tree that was surrounded by the biggest amount of presents a twelve and a ten year old had ever seen in there life before.
We sneak our way down the rest of the stairs, and start searching for presents of ours. Of course, we hoped the bigger presents would belong to us! Somehow, we managed to look at every single present within 45 minutes. Afterwards, we couldn’t handle the anticipation of waiting any longer! We would run upstairs as loud as a herd of elephants, yelling throughout the house: “SANTA WAS HERE! WAKE UP! COME ON, SLEEPY HEADS!” One by one my family woke up. We gathered around the Christmas tree, handing out gifts and unwrapping them as we go. We enjoyed our time together.