by Vickie Cawley

Created on: May 28, 2010

About 2 to 3 weeks before Christmas me, my sister and brother, my mother and my grandmother would build this beautiful winter wonderland of lighted decorations and we had candles in every window in the apartment.  Me, my sister and my brother were in charge of decorating the tree and I have to tell you, it was a little lopsided..  Mother and Grandmother never said a word, just told us how beautiful it was. 

On the night before Christmas, we helped bake cookies for Santa, of course we got to taste test these cookies just to make sure that Santa would love them.  We would then sit around our living room while mother read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to us.  This was done the exact same way every Christmas Eve and before we went to bed, reluctantly I might add, we put out the cookies and a glass of milk.  The next morning the cookies and milk were gone. Now I'm not sure if my mother and grandmother ate the cookies and drank the milk or if it was my cat.  Anyway, that was a big sign that said Santa had been here.  To our very house.  We felt special and loved on this occasion. 

As was tradition in my family from my earliest childhood memories, me, my sister and little brother all climbed into my small single bed.  There was barely enough room for myself, but somehow we made it work.  I remember all three of us with our noses pressed against the cold glass pane window trying to get a glimpse of Santa's arrival.  That never happened, but we were woke up one early morning by a big crash we heard in the living room of the small apartment we lived in.  We were all awake instantly.  Frozen in place,  we each said to the other, "go out of the bedroom and peek around the corner of the living room to see if that noise had really came from Santa or from my cat.  My cat was notorious for climbing the tree and knocking down all the ornaments on the tree.  No one ever got mad,we just laughed and put things back together the best we could.  Well, obviously we were all too afraid to go look because we believed that if we saw Santa, he would leave us without any new toys. 

Over the years we grew to know that Santa was not real in the way we thought of him, but the magic surrounding the season has been kept alive and burning in our hearts to this very day.  We still get together on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day even though we live far apart.  It is as if time has stood still and nothing had changed.  We are all three closer together now than we have ever been all because of a tradition born of our mother and grandmother.  Thank you mom and grandmother for the foundation you both gave us. We walk that same path every day of our lives now.  We may not have been rich or got the same cool toys other kids got, but we had something much better, we knew what Christmas really meant and we celebrated the birth of Jesus and the love of our family for each other.

I thank God everyday for the treasures of memories we have stored growing up.  We could not have had it better will all the money in the world.

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