The good ol' days

I was just reading a blog by someone else and starting thinking about Christmas when I was a kid.

Every year I would go to Southridge Mall to sit on Santa's lap to tell him what I wanted. I knew I would get what I asked for because the Santa at Southridge was the "real" Santa. The ones that we would see at Kmart and other places were just his "helpers". I remember telling a Santa at Kmart that I knew he wasn't the REAL santa but his secret was safe with me. It amazed me that I wasn't scared of Santa. When I was little I had a horrible fear of beards. I'm not sure why or what made me so scared of men with beards but Santa never feel into that fear. He was safe. After all, he brought me gifts. How bad could he be? I could never quite understand why I always had to sit on Santa's lap to tell him what I wanted but my sister that is 11 1/2 years older than I am NEVER had to go sit on his lap, yet he always knew exactly what she wanted. I never thought to hard about it. He brought me what I wanted so I didn't really care about her luck.

On Christmas Eve we would have the whole family over to exchange gifts. I couldn't wait for them to leave so Santa would come to visit. Our house that we lived in was an old 2 story house. Surprisingly for as old as it was we didn't have a fireplace. That never concerned me though. I knew the big guy would be able to come in the back door to drop off my gifts. Our back door was almost as old as our house I think. It didn't have a lock that worked so the way we would "lock" it was we would shove a butter knife between the door jam and the molding around the door. It would prevent the door from opening. Therefore we felt safe?!?! Most of the time it was my job to check the back door to make sure it was "locked" meaning the butter knife was inserted. I was never tall enough to "lock" the door so if it wasn't locked I would have to have one of the parents insert the butter knife. On Christmas Eve I would always go to make sure the butter knife was NOT in the door. I didn't want to lock Southridge Santa out.

I had my Christmas Eve Checklist
1. Assess the butter knife situation...check.
2. Make sure the cookies were out for santa...check.
3. Try my best to go to sleep...check.

Christmas morning I would always wake up at the buttcrack of dawn to see what Southridge Santa brought me. The rule was my parents and my sister had to be awake before we opened gifts. My mom was usually awake but my sister was a teenager that needed her beauty rest. I would ALWAYS have to wake her up and it usually took more than one attempt. We would open our gifts. I would continue playing with my gifts and my sister would go back to bed. At that point I didn't care. I was free and clear to play with all my new toys.

Then there was the year my parents dropped the bomb. I remember it like it was yesterday. My parents sat me down and said they had something to tell me. My mom was sobbing uncontrollably, as usual. My dad drops the bomb. Santa's not real, not even the one at Southridge. I looked at them, shrugged my shoulders and said "I know, Michelle already told me" I had known since the year before but I didn't want to let my parents know. I wanted to make sure I still got my gifts. You must believe if you want to receive. My moms tears stopped instantly. What they thought would be the most tramatic news of my life so far was no big deal. I had already mourned the death of Southridge Santa. I was over it. I was just playing along at that point. I didn't want to disappoint the parents.

Since I didn't believe in Santa my parents didn't have to do the whole Christmas morning thing anymore. They would usually save our big gift for later in the night after every else had left. Well that year they were going to let us do our Santa gifts on Christmas morning. My big gift was a new stereo. In was one of those huge ones with the speakers that were about 3 feet tall. We went to bed knowing my parents would be putting out our "santa" gifts for us in the morning. At about 2 am I hear my dad saying "psst Mary Ann. Wake up. Come downstairs." What in the heck is he up to? I get up, rubbing my eyes and trying to focus on the bright light of our living room. As I walk in I hear the angelic voices of the Beach Boys singing Kokomo. It was coming from my brand new HUGE stereo that was set up in the middle of the dining room. It was a double whammy. I got my stereo PLUS a new bitchin cassette tape to listen to. The soundtrack to the blockbuster Cocktail. A movie that I hadn't seen yet but I knew I loved every song on the Soundtrack. Can we say Don't Worry Be Happy??? My parents were both so excited to give me my gift. Unfortunately I didn't share the same enthusiasm in the wee hours of the morning. I looked at it and said "wow, cool. Can I go back to bed?" They knew the magic of Santa was gone forever and I was getting to the age of sleep being more important than anything else in the world. I loved that stereo with all my heart. It had all kinds of equalizers that I were to NEVER touch or I was pretty sure the stereo would explode into little bits of plastic. That was the kind of importance my parents put on me NEVER touching those equalizers. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with my parents sitting there all night on Christmas Eve saying "does that sound good?" "What about this, is that better?" while my dad adjusted them to make it have just the right amount of treble and bass.

I think it was the next year that my sister got a brand new typewriter so she could type her papers in college. I got an army green TV. My parents had just spent all winter redoing my bedroom. Everything was Mauve and Country Blue. My mom had spent so long making sure everything matched perfectly then they bust out this army green tv. My first words when I opened it were "WOW, AWESOME, A TV. It's GREEN. Can I paint it?" Come to find out my dad was very excited about me having a green tv. To be honest I liked the green better than the mauve and country blue in my roomm. I didn't paint that tv. I made sure everyone who came in my room saw that I was super cool because I had a green tv.

Those are just a few of my childhood christmas memories. I hope everyone has a great 2009!!!