Ah, Christmas Memories

I've been saying for years now that instead of shopping nonstop for weeks, pulling an all night gift wrapping session, and stressing out until I make myself vomit, that I would really, REALLY, like to take a trip...a mini vacation, if you will. I don't care where I go, and I really don't care who goes with me. If you want to go, come on...let's go.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Christmas. I really do. I love to stay up late on Christmas Eve, and I absolutely love to see the kids' faces as they wake up the next morning. It really is one of my favorite parts of being a parent. It takes me back to 1981...

So, bam. I'm 6. We lived in a REALLY small, 2-bedroom house (OK, single-wide trailer) and there were 6 of us total. It was cozy, as we all say now in our era of HGTV. I shared a twin bunk bed with my little brother. For Ken's sake, let me stop here and reinforce that I was SIX, not 21. This story grosses him out beyond belief.

Anyway (stay with me, Ken) it's Christmas Eve. I would be so anxious for Santa to come that I'd kick Dustin out of bed numerous times throughout the night to go "check" to see if Santa had come yet. He'd come back every time and sleepily say, "Heather, he hasn't come yet." Great, I'd think to myself. This is gonna take a while.

I would, of course, and to Dustin's relief, eventually go to sleep only to wake up the next morning to a Christmas wonderland. I'm still not sure how my mom did it. We obviously didn't have a lot of money but she somehow transformed our field-cut evergreen from a barren pile of cedar sticks into a colorful, present filled oasis with a magical glowing presence. I would just stand there, awe struck for a few minutes, and soak it all in. How in the world did Santa manage to get all of these beautifully wrapped boxes under our tree without me hearing anything? After all, we didn't even have a chimney.

Those truly are some of my favorite childhood memories. And not a Christmas Eve goes by that I don't call my brother on Christmas Eve and ask him to "check" on Santa. I'm sure he hates it now that he's 29, but he's not getting rid of me any time soon. Ah, Christmas memories.

But now that I'm older it's not near as much fun. We buy for A LOT of people...cousins, brothers, sisters, moms, dads, aunts, uncles...good gosh it's just exhausting. I love them all, but we are ALL hard pressed to know what to buy. So, for me, when I ask someone to email me direct links to specific things their kids want, or when Ken makes me a bullet pointed list of all the pros and cons of the latest and greatest GPS systems, it just takes something away from the overall Christmas experience.

So, let's take a trip I say. Come and go with me. Or better yet, let's just give all the money that we would have spent on the trip on the 9 foster kids that I've been shopping for the last couple of weeks. That's what I really want to do. REALLY. I mean, I would have adopted one of these kids already if Ken would let me. Her name is Heather...she's 13, loves the movie "Bring It On" and wants a hair straightener as one of her gifts. Is this child the spawn of me or what? Her name is HEATHER, for crying out loud.

But for now, I'll keep shopping, I'll press on with the gift wrapping, and I'll try to control my need to be sick. I won't take a trip this year, as I would obviously be going alone at this point. But if anyone changes their mind for next year, you know where to find me :)