Since yesterday's post was somewhat Christmas-themed, I thought I would just spend the next few posts reflecting on my past experiences with the holidays. You may recall that my first actual memory is Christmas related.
I think I'll start with the time I was seven years old. It was a couple of weeks before Christmas. My family took me and Loyd to Roswell to go to Sears. When we were walking down the main aisle, I got the biggest shock of my life up to that point. I SAW SANTA! He was just in the middle of the aisle talking to other kids. There was no display with a huge chair for him to sit in. He was just there and appeared to be hanging out for the sake of it.
I didn't know what to do. I knew that I had been a bad boy at times during the past year. From all the stories and songs, I knew that he would be able to see right through me and know that I had been naughty time and again. I tried to run off, but my father had a pretty good grip on me.
I know I was crying the whole time. I don't remember anything he said to me. I probably just stayed quiet and hoped that if I didn't say anything, it wouldn't be taken as a lie. I don't remember how Loyd was reacting.
It's interesting, but every year after that, when I saw Santa, it wasn't that big a deal. I guess it's because I still kept getting everything I asked for and more.
However, the anticipation that Santa would be visiting us continued to be a big deal. On Christmas Eve, it would be so hard for me to fall asleep. It was even harder when we were told to go to bed so that Santa would come. However, we could still hear the adults in the living room talking and making noise. I always wondered why we had to go to bed so early and everyone else got to stay up late. We knew Santa wasn't going to show up when people were up and walking around the house. We might as well have just been allowed to stay up late with everyone else as well. (Of course, I understand that they were setting stuff up for us to find the next morning, but you'd think they'd be a LOT more quiet about it.)
One year, Loyd and I started pushing back. We would not go to bed and were very firm in our stance. Mom, Dad and Grandma Bend were getting very irritated with us. Then the next thing we knew, we could hear sleigh bells outside! Mom and Dad said that Santa was there and we had to get to bed right away! We were in such a rush to get into our pajamas and sleeping bags. But again, we were in bed, and I could still hear our parents and everyone else, still awake, talking and making noise. I guess it was someone outside running around shaking sleigh bells for the heck of it, but it was something Mom and Dad decided to jump on since Loyd and I were being so difficult.
I remember one night in which I woke up and was hallucinating that I could see images of the nativity on the wall of Cind's bedroom, where Loyd and I were sleeping. I must have had a really rough night that year.
I stopped believing in Santa when I was 10 years old. This came about after I had broken something that "Santa" had brought me. My Dad yelled at me and said that cost a lot of money. I was confused. I thought Santa got it for me. That meant it was free, right? Well, if Dad says he paid money for it, maybe Santa didn't get it for me. I pondered that for the next year. When Christmas Eve rolled around, I told Mom and Dad I wasn't into the Santa thing anymore. They said I still needed to go along with it because Loyd still believed. I got a good night's sleep that year.
When I was 16, I just wanted to keep on sleeping. Even though Loyd had stopped believing at that point, Mom still made us get up early for Christmas.
As a grownup spending Christmas by myself, it seemed like I just never really looked forward to the holiday season. For a long period of time, I felt like I was missing out on that magic. But since I fell in love, got married and started my own family, I can feel it returning full force this year. I hope this trend continues.
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