I love Christmas. Love. It.

My family was always waaaay into Christmas. I believed in Santa Claus until I was a senior in high school. I'll never forget the evening when my parents told me that Santa wasn't real. For some reason we were in their bedroom sitting on their bed and when they told me I cried. Okay maybe I wasn't a senior in high school the first time they told me. Or the second. I was a firm believer in Santa Claus and it was hard for me to face up to the truth. And maybe they didn't have to tell me a second time. But I really did cry when they told me. And when we (my sibs and I) were all in college (I'm the youngest in the family) my mom decided to stop writing "from Santa" on the gift tags and it was like she stabbed us in the hearts with her Grinch sword. I could barely open my presents that year. Yes, I knew they were from "mom & dad" but I so wanted them to be from Santa. The next year our gifts were from Santa again.

Since I've been sharing holiday memories I thought I'd share some Christmas memories.

Every year we would all get presents and then we'd get one "big" family gift. One year all we wanted was an Atari. We dropped hints. We wrote it on our lists for Santa. We begged. We pleaded. We probably made deals with God and Santa. At the end of our marathon gift opening session on Christmas morning there was no Atari. Since we were all polite children we thanked our parents for our wonderful gifts with big fat Atari tears in our eyes. We would have felt bad letting our true disappointment show. Our dad worked hard to give us what we had. Perhaps he didn't work as hard as he could have and couldn't afford the Atari? Perhaps he just wanted us to know what disappointment was? The next part I remember as if it was in slow motion. My dad reached behind the brown plaid couch (super ugly but oh so comfy) and said, "Oh! What's this? There's one more back here!" and pulled out a big box. My brothers, sister and I looked at each other while our eyes grew wide. Could it be? Did dad get that Christmas bonus? We tore the wrapping paper off and there was our Atari. Oh the PacMan and Space Invaders and sore wrists from the non-ergonomically correct controllers. *sigh* The best part is that I always remember my dad playing video games with us. Sure he sucked but it was fun to play the games with him. A couple years ago my brother got him the PacMan game that you can plug right into the tv. He played it forever. I'd call my parents and my mom would answer. "Where's dad?" I'd ask. She'd say, "Well of course he's playing PacMan." and then I'd hear him yell "GOL DARNIT!" in the background and I knew he'd just lost. He played so much he broke it and went out and bought another one. Now PacMan has been put away because he has found ShotOnline, an online golf game.

Another fun memory was the year my grandparents were separated. Now I know that doesn't sound fun but it was really cool when my grandpa showed up at our house at 5 on Christmas MORNING and pounded on my parents' window to wake them up. We didn't think we'd see him that Christmas and it was so fun to have him there when we got out of bed. He was the fun grandpa that would tell us jokes like this: How do you catch a fish with chewing tobacco and a baseball bat? You sprinkle the chewing tobacco around your boat. The fish eat it and when they come up to spit, you hit them on the head with the baseball bat.

This is Jesse and my first Christmas as a married couple. We're staying at my sister's house on Christmas eve so we'll get to see her kids open their presents from Santa. I am so glad they invited us to join them. I also hope that someday Jesse and I will have Christmas traditions of our own. He says if we have a kid he doesn't want to tell them there is a Santa Claus. That's cool as long as he doesn't mind that I'll be pulling said kid aside and telling them that daddy is looneytunes and is off his meds and that of course Santa is real.

I have also been thinking a lot about Jesse's cousin (I guess she's my cousin-in-law), Karen, whose boyfriend was killed in a car accident a couple weeks before Thanksgiving. I don't know what holiday traditions they had but I do know that whatever they were, Karen will be going through them without him. He was only 24 years old. They were supposed to close on land to build a home together the week after he was killed. I've been thinking about them a lot because I knew him. They came to our wedding. We spent last Christmas with them. I can't even imagine what she is going through. I'll definitely be thinking of her and their families.

This is also the first Christmas in a while that I'm not working with homeless families. My coworker and I always worked hard every holiday season to make sure each family had gifts to give. The agency I worked at had an "adopt-a-family" program where people in the community would sign up to buy gifts for a family. Even though it was a lot of work for us, we really enjoyed making sure every child at the shelter had a few gifts to open. We also made sure everyone had enough food for a giant holiday meal. It was just nice that the adults could have one day when they could have fun and not worry about housing, employment, or feeding the kids. We always came back after the new year ready to worry about that stuff.

I don't know what your holiday traditions are, but whatever they are, I hope you have a wonderful and peaceful time!

I apologize for the marathon post but I figure I haven't been posting much lately so this makes up for it. Or I'm just bored.