I've had a little time since Jordan posted her thoughts, and the thing that I remember about Christmas head and shoulders above everything else is the waiting, and waiting, and waiting again at the top of the stairs of our home. This was all part of the Christmas morning routine in my home. Shelley and I would wake up around 5:30 or so and we would run to the others bedroom and wait for my parents to wake up. It was an eternity before my parents would call up that they were ready with the video camera and such, with the youngest going first. So I would watch Kate run down the stairs, listening to her excited cries as we waited for a few minutes, and then it was Chris' turn to go down. The cycle of excited cries and loud announcements of "Wow, a a ________" would continue with Chris and finally Shelley. After them it was finally my turn to come down and see my presents from Santa. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to be the oldest sibling...
I remember helping to decorate the trees, and that we had to straighten the branches of the fake tree just so to satisfy my father's sense of craftmanship. The sad part is I gave the same speech I received about spreading the branches out correctly to my girls just the other day. I also remember holding the ladder while my father put the lights up on the nails he had spaced perfectly down the gutter, so that they would look straight and hold tight. I didn't appreciate my father's commitment to making it look right at the time, and just wanted to be finished.
One of my hardest years was one of the most memorable, the first Christmas away from home. At the top of the world, I worked in Norway as a missionary with my companion. We had opened the area up to missionary work a few weeks previously with my companion, and had very few interested people, and even fewer members. We lived with the family that comprised the small branch in Alta. After spending almost a week inside escaping the dangerously cold weather, we looked forward to enjoying the weeklong event of a norwegian Christmas. It begins with little Christmas eve, the day before christmas eve, and goes until 3 or 4 days after Christmas. On little christmas eve, I remember feeling a little sick, and thinking to myself that it was lucky that I was getting sick on little Christmas eve, because then I wouldn't be sick for actual Christmas. Oh, what a cruel joke that turned out to be, I spiked a fever of around 103, and spent most of Christmas Eve, and the greater part of Christmas day lying on the couch, listening to the same Tennis Shoes among the Nephites book on tape over and over again. I remember calling my parents, and talking to them for a while, and then hanging up and a few minutes later wondering if I had really made the call, or was just delerious.
Reading the Nativity story was also always a tradition on Christmas eve, as was the yearly pleading from Shelley and I that we should be able to pick one present to open on christmas eve. I loved going to lunch at grandma's house so that I could run around with my cousins and try out and compare presents. I could always depend on getting a good pair of sweats from grandma, and the feeling of such large group of people around me that cared about me is something I have found more and more treasured as I see what other families have to make do with. As much as I grumble about cheesy christmas songs and hearing christmas music before thanksgiving, I really love christmas and can't wait to start real traditions with my children that they can hold on to.
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I was just telling Darren the other day how organized we were on Christmas Morning. Remember how we always peeked on the way to mom and dad's room, and the year there was that gigantic teddy bear. We couldn't figure out what it was! It was fun to hear your memories, we need to write them down before we forget them.
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