2. Waking up and staring impatiently at the clock, and that moment when you're finally allowed to rush down to open your stocking
3. Mom putting every single hair tie from her stocking in her hair at once
4. Getting to be the person to pass out all the presents
5. Shaking and squeezing boxes in order to try and determine what they are
6. The whole family singing beautiful Christmas carols around the tree on Christmas Eve
7. Pumpkin pie
8. Hanging around for hours in PJ's and Christmas socks
9. Eating candy before breakfast
10. Surprises
11. Rotating slowly in front of the fire so that you stay warm on all fronts
12. Crunching across snowy fields in boots
13. Dad reciting funny Christmas poems in a low British accent
14. Mom insisting on curled bangs and every little girl hating them (I'm looking at you, Tiana)
15. Watching the Nutcracker and ballerina-dancing with my sister
16. Shoveling snow in my bright yellow coat
17. The littlest child lisping out the Christmas story from Luke
18. Christmas dresses
19. Gathering all your presents together and carrying them off to your room to gloat over them like a hoarder
20. Attempting to get a nice family picture with everyone smiling
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ReplyDeleteOh bangs.... They are my great trial... That and posing for those pictures.
ReplyDeleteTo add a few:
ReplyDelete- watching the twinkle in Dad's eye as he insisted every year that he was NOT Santa Claus
- lying awake listening to Grandmama's grandfather clock chime away the hours, unable to sleep because it's Christmas Eve
- setting the clock forward in order to go get our stockings sooner (I think we only tried that once)
- having a "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree every single year
- getting to pick out the place setting we wanted to use from Grandmama's fancy china
- a certain red velveteen nightgown I used to wear every single Christmas until I was way too old for it
- the first year I got to eat Christmas dinner at the "grown up table"
- getting up and going skiing the next day
- ping pong tournaments
- playing in the snow and coming in to hot chocolate
- Grandma Neal's fudge
- having the entire crazy clan all together
- Getting to sleep in the closet