Christmas Stocking

I’ve always enjoyed the Christmas season. The church had a program produced and directed by my mother, but even the rehearsals were fun. This would always jump start my sense of the Christmas spirit.

I began to buy my parents and siblings Christmas presents with my own money and found that there truly was more joy in giving than receiving. One year I left clues under the tree to where I had hidden my siblings’ gifts. That was an especially fun holiday.

In my own home, we let our kids hang up a stocking that they are allowed to get into Christmas morning while they wait for their parents to wake up. I think that is more merciful than when I was sitting up wide-awake at five in the morning waiting for the chance to get to the Christmas tree.

I remember one Christmas Eve when I was pretty young; my cousin wanted me to spend the night at his house. Once permission was granted, my cousin dug up an old woolen sock for me to hang up next to his for Saint Nicholas. I knew that meant Santa, but he insisted on calling him Saint Nicholas.

I was surprised when he was allowed to use a hammer and nail to hang my stocking on the wall. He was caught before he actually made a hole and was given some Scotch tape instead. After that little episode, we dressed in our pajamas because it was time for bed whether we thought so or not.

My aunt and uncle put us in a huge bedroom with a huge bed. It must have been a king-sized bed. It was the biggest bed I’d ever seen in my life. I’d only looked into this room from the doorway in the past, so it was a real treat to actually be allowed to use it.

We were in the dark talking for a long time that night with several interruptions from my aunt telling us to be quiet. We would eventually be loud again, until my aunt sharply told us to go to sleep. We tried very hard to be quiet after that, but the light from a passing car floated across the wall caused us to start a new game of hiding under the covers. It wasn’t long before we were shooting these lights using our fingers for guns.

Sometime in the night we did fall asleep, and before I knew it, morning had arrived. As it always happens when I’m in a strange house and bed, I was awake at that familiar hour of five o’clock Christmas morning. My cousin was in a coma at the other side of that ocean of a bed, and I was stuck in that situation I usually found myself every Christmas: I was wide-awake with no hope of seeing another waking soul for hours. It might as well have been years as far as I was concerned.

When my cousin finally resurrected, time seemed to start again, and it wasn’t long before I was dumping my stocking on the floor to see what Saint Nicholas had brought me.

I’ve heard it said that Santa stops his watch to stop time itself so he can deliver all the presents in one night. I am convinced he does it around five o’clock Christmas morning.