Christmas Memories

I woke up alone this morning. Jay went to Idaho with John. I have to admit it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I went to the church at 10:30, since I was the only librarian in the ward (which is why I stayed behind.) It was nice to have a peaceful morning. First thing I did was log onto Facebook. I know I am addicted to Facebook, but I had a cousin who was born on Christmas. I posted quite a few likes and watched a YouTube video that my sister shared. It was Simon & Garfunkel singing "Silent Night", one of my favorite Christmas carols. I liked the simplicity of their arrangement. It was just them singing and the piano playing. I also saw some pictures that a family friend posted. The picture of the stockings laid out on couch brought the memories back. Chelsey was continuing a tradition that Kevin's family has had for years. Kevin's mom, Jewel would hang a stocking for each family member on the fireplace. Santa would fill the stockings. Little Mark (Kevin's brother) twice saw her fill the stockings at 3am and even saw his dad, Chuck bring the gifts from the garage. So I am surprised that Mark believed in Santa after that. The Pughs also had a tradition that the youngest opened their present first. One Christmas when Crystal was 6 or 7, she asked her dad if the order could be changed. I guess she was tired of being first and probably she would always be first. That Christmas, Chuck was the first to open his presents.

I saw a neighbors' child at church. She will be a year old in January, so she is celebrating her first Christmas. I remembered Jay's first Christmas. He was bewildered at all the chaos. One of Jay's presents was a squeaky toy. He stared at the toy as Mom squeaked in his face. Or maybe Jay was bewildered at us older children being too rambunctious. And maybe he wasn't quite awake yet. John liked to get up at 4am, maybe it was 5am, but he was always way wired for Christmas morning. Some years I was too. I remember once, getting up on the hour every hour to see if it was time. That had to be the longest night for my mom. Growing up, we always did a Christmas program on Christmas Eve. My mom probably thought of idea as way to keep up later.  John would always read "The Night Before Christmas" and Mom would read "The Fourth Wiseman". We would sing Christmas songs from the hymn book or another song book that we got from King's in Rupert. Someone would recite Luke 2 and maybe some of Matthew.

Probably the Christmas that I remember the best is when the furnace broke. I was in 1st grade and Mom was expecting Jay. Mom bundled us up and took a trip into town. Not sure if we went to Paul, Burley or Rupert. When we got home, she sent us to bed. The electricity had gone out also. She called the furnace man, but he couldn't come out until the electricity came back on. I remember waking up, it was dark, but I could the hall light shine beneath the door. I could hear noise, so I asked my sister, Mary what it was and she said it was Santa. I believed her and I still do. The furnace man gave up his time with his family to fix our furnace, just so we could wake up early to open presents from another Santa.