Christma Past

“You awake?”
“Yep.”
“You think their up yet?”
“Nope”
“Let’s get them up.”
“Not yet, it isn’t time yet.”
“Come on lets go see if he came.”
“Not yet let’s wait a little bit.”
“Well I am going!”
“Ok ok, but let’s get mom and dad first.”

This was always the same conversation every year between my sister and me, and then we would sneak past the living room peeking quickly to see if the jolly fat man had left us some much-anticipated loot and of course, every year he had. We would then make our way through the dark house to mom and dad’s room and stand outside the door. Daddy always knew we were there. We would stand there a few minutes listening to see if they said anything.
“Let’s get them up” my sister would say.
“You go first.” I would tell her.
Then daddy would cough or make some sort of noise and we would run in yelling “He came He came!” and daddy would say “lets go see what he brought” and we would all go and check out the loads of goodies. It is funny how I can clearly remember most every Christmas we shared, but I can remember very few of the gifts I actually received.

Through the years living at home, it never changed, even when we were long past the age of believing in Santa. My little sister would come into my room and get me up and then we would go get our parents, still to this day she is up long before the crack of dawn waiting to open gifts, but most of the time now it is through phone calls that we share the joy of the season with each other.

I miss her waking me up on Christmas morning, and I miss sneaking into mom and dad’s room waking them up. I miss sitting around the tree opening presents with them. I miss mom and Jo in the kitchen cooking all day, all the while telling me that they didn’t need my help they had everything under control, because they knew I only asked to be nice I still hate being in the kitchen. I miss watching my mom make million dollar fudge for me. I miss going Christmas shopping with mom and Jo, and I miss Arby’s beef and cheddar sandwiches after we were done. I don’t know why, but we always seemed to go there after Christmas shopping. The three of us use to have a great time meandering through the stores together sometimes we didn’t even buy anything at all. The one thing I really want for Christmas, the one thing I can’t have is for my mom and my sister to live in the same town I do, so we can enjoy all of the Christmas cheer together again.