Christmas Traditions

Today for wordfull wednesday I've chosen my own topic: Christmas Traditions. There is one in particular that I don't carry on any more, but I enjoyed it quite a bit in my younger days. Every Christmas morning I used to wake up VERY early. 4am kind of early. I didn't set my alarm or anything, I just woke up and would come out to the tree. It was a very exciting feeling. Knowing that I was up, but no one else was. I would go sit in the glow of the lights on the Christmas tree and look over my stocking. I wasn't feeling greedy. I didn't take everything out, just looked at the top little bit. Mostly I just liked being there with the pretty lights and the quiet. As hard as I tried to be quiet, though, my Dad would always hear me and tell me to go back to bed. I'd stay there for a little while, but just couldn't keep myself away. Eventually (around 5:30) I'd get up again and this time I would end up waking my brothers and everyone else and we would finally go through our stockings and open presents.

As I got older and continued to get up terribly early, Dad decided he should do something about this habit of mine. I think it really started when we lived in Denver. (yes, I was in high school and still doing this!) I came up the stairs early Christmas morning to discover that my path to the Christmas tree was covered with newspapers! There was no way I could walk through all that and not be loud. So I very quietly and patiently began moving sheets of newspaper one at a time and I made it to the tree. The next year Dad put a tripwire that was attached to an alarm at the top of the stairs. I got really lucky that year and felt the wire with my foot instead of walking through it, so I just stepped over the wire and happily went to the tree. The year after that, however, I got caught. I cautiously came up the stairs, looking for anything fishy, but didn't see anything. As soon as I set foot in the living room an alarm went off! Dad had set up a motion sensor! Oh man, did I hurry back down those stairs. As I got back into bed I heard the alarm shut off. I waited for what felt like hours, but was probably only 5 minutes, before getting back out of bed. I went up the stairs, crawled through the kitchen, then lay on my belly just inside the kitchen looking into the living room. There was a couch just to the left of the doorway and as I looked behind it I noticed a cord plugged into the socket that wasn't usually there. I reached back and unplugged the cord and hoped that would do the trick. Then I slowly crawled into the living room. So far, so good. No alarms were going off. I stood up and realized that I had made it. I couldn't keep myself from laughing as I sat there that early morning. Ah, the satisfaction!

I have long since given up my early morning escapades. Oh, the things growing up does to you. But, this year Stephen keeps saying he'll be getting up at 5:00 Christmas morning. I can't help but hope he does and does it every year so that I can be the one to set the traps! Lucky for me, I have a husband who is quite resourceful, and a Dad with plenty of creativity and experience. May the fun continue.