Family Traditions

The Christmas Cards are up, the stockings are hung...bring on St. Nick...

When I was a child, Santa always visited our house on Christmas Eve, just like he did everyone else.  However, Santa's delivery of our presents was quite unique.  Mama had a certain way she wanted Santa greeted.  This is how it always went from my earliest memory until the Christmas before I married Mr. Ken.  All six of us kids and Mama would be in the living room and kitchen, cooking, watching TV, playing, putting puzzles together, just having family moments, and then Mama would say, "I think I heard something." (Now, I find this funny, because I now know that even back then Mama was completely deaf in one ear because of a birth defect and could barely hear out of the other.)  But all six of us kids would freeze and get completely silent.  Mama would then swear she heard bells and she would swish us all into the bathroom.  She told us to sing Christmas carols so Santa would hear our angelic voices and leave us lots of toys.  Of course we would.  As we sang, we would listen.  Mama would let someone, Santa, into the house.  Santa would holler the Ho, Ho, Ho business and hit a few walls with his bag, stomp on the floor extra big and just make a whole lot of racket.  Meanwhile we're still in that bathroom singing, "Silent Night".  After a while we'd hear Mama let Santa out the front door, yelling, "See you next year!"  She then would let us come out and there would be all our presents.  It probably wasn't much, maybe a doll, a purse and a game for all of us to play, but it seemed like the whole toy store.  That was because of their presentation.  It was SO BIG!!!  After Santa left and Daddy came in we'd go through all our gifts.  We were then allowed to stay up all night, as long as we didn't bother Mama and Daddy.  We played, we fought, we laughed, and tried really hard not to sleep.  Christmas Day we started all over again.  Oh what a journey, oh what a ride!  Share a Christmas memory with me...