Merry Christmas!

K was playing some Christmas music on the way home from visiting Chris and Meaghan and their new baby Logan yesterday, and I got to thinking about what Christmas used to mean for me. When we were kids, my sister and I would get up early on Christmas morning and sneak through the den where the tree and presents were to wake up our parents. For some reason, we never really tried to sneak a peak at the presents under the tree. The Santa gifts were never wrapped, so we could have easily looked to see if we had gotten what we wanted without anyone ever being the wiser. For some reason, even to a couple of greedy kids, the magic of the moment was sacred and not to be ruined by an advanced preview.

After waking our parents up we had to wait a little longer to open presents as we had to call my grandparents and wait for them to arrive before we could start the orgy of gift receiving. They only lived a mile away, so it wasn't that long of a wait. It was often not even sunrise by the time the first scrap of wrapping paper hit the floor.

Christmas kind of lost the excitement when I got to be an adult and didn't really have any reason to look forward to the gifts as much. That's a little different this year. We did our first round of family Christmases last week and E was a blast. He enthusiastically opened his presents, carefully inspected each gift and seemed genuinely thrilled that he had more stuff, even if it was just socks. He actually made Christmas morning fun for me again. Thanks E.