Thanks.

Holy stocking stuffers am I ever excited for Christmas!

I always assumed that my parents were exhausted in the morning because they'd stayed up into the wee hours of night playing eggnog rummy with Santa and scooping reindeer turds off the back porch, from where they'd rolled off the slanted roof...and then later I figured it was because they'd stayed up late covering for Santa when he decided we were too old for such things. Even after figuring out a thing or two, and going to bed with a little sigh of regret that there were no more surprises left in life, now that the truth was out, I'd still wake up in the morning and dash down the hall to see that Yes! He came! Whoever he is! The stockings would be so fat with surprises that they'd crawled down from their places on the mantle and lay sluggish, hungover, by the fireplace. The gift pile, which I'd been keeping careful track of since the first of December, would have exploded to twice the size, having decided to produce offspring after all. We were spoiled rotten, we were blessed. We also had to wait. For Mommy and Daddy to get out of bed.

"GET UP SANTA CAME!" I'd yell at the top of my lungs, I'd bounce on the bed. And you know what those lazy grownups did? They pressed the snooze button.

"Just give us a half hour and then we'll get up." One of them would mumble from a drool covered pillow, and I'd groan, and complain. It wasn't fair. All those beautiful shiny wrapped packages crying out to be opened, admired, and played with, and these two heartless creatures just lay in bed, snoring like it was any other day. No, any other day they would have been up, drinking coffee, bickering, making breakfast. It seemed that Christmas day was, for them, the one day out of the year when both parents would sleep in to the tortuous hour of nine. NINE! Can you believe it?

One year my mom said I could open one present while I waited for them to get up, and I misheard her. They found me surrounded by discarded wrapping paper and toys - all of them - and I held up a doll. "Look what Grandma gave me!"

Another year my sister tied me in bed and promised to free me at seven o clock. The torture! She actually had the nerve to go down the hall and come back, reporting matter of factly, "Santa came, and the stockings are so full they're sitting on the ground."

Another year I shared a room with my brother - he was about three or four, and I was a disillusioned teenager. He would not go to sleep. "Go to sleep or Santa won't come," I reminded him. He was silent for a little while, and then my dad walked down the hall outside our room.
"Did you hear that? I think it's reindeers on the roof!"


Anyways...a new truth has surfaced. Santa has come and gone, and I am still awake. Why is this? I am so excited for Edie to open her presents! I think I might be more excited for Edie to open her presents than I ever was to open mine. Is it possible? Probably not. But still, I can't sleep. I am a geek. I went to RadioShack today to replace the batteries in the old Minolta Uncle Lee gave me. The Pentax has black and white film in it and the Minolta has a roll of Fujicolor. I finally tracked down the camcorder charger and it is plugged into the wall. As I type this, I realize how fortunate we are, how spoiled. Sorry for complaining about the snow. Sorry for being jealous. There are people spending their holidays inside of an airport, wearing the same clothes from last week, I hear. We are warm and well and with family and there is a homemade stocking full of goodies waiting out there for Edie to wake up. She'll be sweaty headed and rosy cheeked and bright eyed and I'll get to be surprised all over again.

Did you hear that?

Kenneth and I had some "decaf irish coffee" which we strongly suspect may not have been decaf after all. His dad prepared the grounds, and I'm not sure Grandpa Hopper even allows "decaf" into his paradigm. There is a jar labeled decaf, but for Grandpa Hopper it probably appears all pixelated, like a censored face on Cops.

We were laying in bed, grinding our teeth and whispering about Christmas, and I told him about my brother listening for reindeer. "Did you hear that!?" I repeated, to demonstrate without saying as much that I was, in effect, as excited as a three year old boy listening for signs of Santa.
Kenneth was getting irritated, though, because he wanted to try and get some sleep.
"That's just the rain, dear. Now go to sleep."
"The reindeer!?"
And he laughed, because he hadn't even meant it like that. Random stroke of genius.


Good night, sleep tight. Don't let Donner or Dasher bite.
And Merry Christmas.

Love,
Kendal