2010-12-22, 07:28 PM
Remember what Christmas was like as a kid? The anticipation that built up weeks beforehand, doing holiday activities in elementary school on a daily basis, seeing the decorations on all of the houses and all of the stores. Christmas music everywhere and whatever cartoon channel you watched had almost non-stop Christmas programming like The Grinch or Rudolph, as well as your favourite cartoon's take on a holiday special. Remember the night before and how hard it felt to get to sleep, but eventually you'd doze off, only to wake up way to early and have to sit there staring at presents for what felt like yeeeaaarrrss. The feelings that made Christmas so special and miraculous.
Every Christmas Eve my family would watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and How The Grinch Stole Christmas. That was really the only 'ritual' we had, but to this day I still try and watch them at least once within the week before Christmas. We would go to bed at our specified bedtimes and my dad would tell us he was going to bed too but if you woke up in the middle of the night and wandered into the hall you could hear the faint sound of tape tearing and him cursing "why don't I ever pineappleing remember to do this earlier."
On Christmas morning I always slept until 7:00 or 8:00 and would find my sisters had already been out in the living room staring at the tree for hours, trying to feel out what the presents were. They would have already eaten half of the candy in their stockings as well. As we got older they started trying to get sneaky about it by poking holes in the wrapping paper and trying to see inside. One year they opened some of my presents and put them in my stocking and when my dad woke up he was like THOSE WEREN'T IN THERE... WHEN I CHECKED EARLIER and they got major hell for screwing with stuff, haha. I'm not entirely innocent as I did my fair share of shaking and poking, but I was no where near as devious as they.
My dad really liked to make us suffer. He'd stay asleep until 10:00 and then he wouldn't let us open presents until he had had his first coffee, which he took forever to make, intentionally. Thinking back on it, I actually believe he probably woke up earlier and just stayed in his room to be a jerk. When we finally got to it, each year he'd pick one of us to hand out the presents, which was always an exciting job to get because we held the fate of christmas joy in our grubby little paws. How many times did my sister yell, "SARAH, SARAH GIVE ME THE BIG ONE IN THE BACK! IT'S FOR ME!" only to receive that obvious pair of socks in return. Muahaha. There was no questioning 'The Gifter' either. What they handed you was what you had to open. Any complaints to my father would result in him standing up and saying "ONE MORE COMPLAINT AND CHRISTMAS IS OFF" which would shut anyone who may be griping or sobbing up.
After we finished opening our presents and throwing out the garbage from the wrappings we were forced to try on any new clothes before we could play with our toys. My Earthworm Jim doll was so close but I just couldn't play with him until I tried on that ugly sweater from grandma. You know, the one with the puppies! After that we had about 3 hours to play with whatever we got (since I was into games and my sisters weren't you could usually find me plopped down in front of my SNES during this period).
Finally, to finish the night off, the whole family would head for my grandparents house. My aunts and uncles and cousins (on my dad's side) were all there. We'd sit around and then open up presents from them (mostly clothes) before dinner. It was usually really boring. Really, really boring. Dinner was split between two tables; adults and kids. My cousin was the oldest and thus the leader of the kids table. His leadership often led to us all "doing the caveman" which meant abandoning all utensils and shoving our faces into the mashed potatoes and getting as much as we could in our gaping mouths. One year he tried doing this after the hot gravy had just been poured... we didn't make that mistake again.
After the long day, we'd get home and were all pretty exhausted so it was typically straight to bed as far I remember. Only 364 more days 'til Christmas.
Now, I typically forget Christmas is coming up until the week before. There is no excitement, unless I've got someone a really good gift and I can't wait to see them open it. I still love Christmas but the magic is mostly gone. I'm hoping that when I have (a) child(ren) it'll all come back, or that I can re-experience it through them, maybe in a new way. I totally intend to torture them like my dad did us, though.
Because that's the real meaning of Christmas.
Do you feel any of that now? How was it for you as a kid?
Every Christmas Eve my family would watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and How The Grinch Stole Christmas. That was really the only 'ritual' we had, but to this day I still try and watch them at least once within the week before Christmas. We would go to bed at our specified bedtimes and my dad would tell us he was going to bed too but if you woke up in the middle of the night and wandered into the hall you could hear the faint sound of tape tearing and him cursing "why don't I ever pineappleing remember to do this earlier."
On Christmas morning I always slept until 7:00 or 8:00 and would find my sisters had already been out in the living room staring at the tree for hours, trying to feel out what the presents were. They would have already eaten half of the candy in their stockings as well. As we got older they started trying to get sneaky about it by poking holes in the wrapping paper and trying to see inside. One year they opened some of my presents and put them in my stocking and when my dad woke up he was like THOSE WEREN'T IN THERE... WHEN I CHECKED EARLIER and they got major hell for screwing with stuff, haha. I'm not entirely innocent as I did my fair share of shaking and poking, but I was no where near as devious as they.
My dad really liked to make us suffer. He'd stay asleep until 10:00 and then he wouldn't let us open presents until he had had his first coffee, which he took forever to make, intentionally. Thinking back on it, I actually believe he probably woke up earlier and just stayed in his room to be a jerk. When we finally got to it, each year he'd pick one of us to hand out the presents, which was always an exciting job to get because we held the fate of christmas joy in our grubby little paws. How many times did my sister yell, "SARAH, SARAH GIVE ME THE BIG ONE IN THE BACK! IT'S FOR ME!" only to receive that obvious pair of socks in return. Muahaha. There was no questioning 'The Gifter' either. What they handed you was what you had to open. Any complaints to my father would result in him standing up and saying "ONE MORE COMPLAINT AND CHRISTMAS IS OFF" which would shut anyone who may be griping or sobbing up.
After we finished opening our presents and throwing out the garbage from the wrappings we were forced to try on any new clothes before we could play with our toys. My Earthworm Jim doll was so close but I just couldn't play with him until I tried on that ugly sweater from grandma. You know, the one with the puppies! After that we had about 3 hours to play with whatever we got (since I was into games and my sisters weren't you could usually find me plopped down in front of my SNES during this period).
Finally, to finish the night off, the whole family would head for my grandparents house. My aunts and uncles and cousins (on my dad's side) were all there. We'd sit around and then open up presents from them (mostly clothes) before dinner. It was usually really boring. Really, really boring. Dinner was split between two tables; adults and kids. My cousin was the oldest and thus the leader of the kids table. His leadership often led to us all "doing the caveman" which meant abandoning all utensils and shoving our faces into the mashed potatoes and getting as much as we could in our gaping mouths. One year he tried doing this after the hot gravy had just been poured... we didn't make that mistake again.
After the long day, we'd get home and were all pretty exhausted so it was typically straight to bed as far I remember. Only 364 more days 'til Christmas.
Now, I typically forget Christmas is coming up until the week before. There is no excitement, unless I've got someone a really good gift and I can't wait to see them open it. I still love Christmas but the magic is mostly gone. I'm hoping that when I have (a) child(ren) it'll all come back, or that I can re-experience it through them, maybe in a new way. I totally intend to torture them like my dad did us, though.
Because that's the real meaning of Christmas.
Do you feel any of that now? How was it for you as a kid?