"Mommy...Daddy...it's Christmas." I slowly walk over to my mom's side of the bed to shake her awake. "C'mon Mommy, we have to go open presents." I whisper. "Elizabeth, it's 5:30 am, can you go back to bed please for another, oh I don't know, two hours?" My mom says groggily. As a stubborn four year old, I didn't take to this question well and I needed a way to convince my parents that we needed to get up now instead of eight. "Mommy, let's get up, it's Chwist-mas!" My three year old sister comes sprinting into my parent's bedroom, her hair standing up in back. She takes a running start and leaps onto the bed, landing on my dad's legs. "What the-- Caroline!" my dad yells out in pain, trying to push my sister off. He began to mumble words, that at the time, did not mean anything to me and weren't seen as offensive at all. "Caroline and Elizabeth go back to bed now or I'm canceling Christmas." my mom yelled suddenly grabbing our attention. When my mom yells, you know that she means business and the idea of canceling Christmas was not even an option. Caroline and I started to walk back to our bedroom but before we could get there my four month old brother woke up screaming and crying.
We all made our way to Collin's room. "Caroline and Elizabeth go to your room now!" My dad said as he started to push us towards our room. "Does this mean Christmas is cancelled?" I asked, on the verge of crying. I knew my dad wouldn't be able to resist "the face." He looked at me for a moment and contemplated closing the door. "No Elizabeth." He said smiling "Come here." We all walked to Collin's room where my mom was trying to get him back to sleep by holding and rocking him. I sat on the floor quietly while Caroline went over to the book shelf to to grab Twas the Night Before Christmas. She opened the book and I could hear her trying to sound out the words. My dad sat down next to her and put in his lap, trying to help her read the book. I walked over and sat down next to him, looking at the pictures and listening to Caroline's attempts to read. As we kept reading, Collin stopped crying and my mom actually pulled out a couple of other Christmas books and we read those.
We ended up falling back asleep on my brother's floor until 8:30 a.m. He woke up first, but ready to actually get up this time. This might seem like a strange Christmas memory but it's my favorite because we created traditions that. Whether my parents like to admit it or not, they always looked forward to us waking up early and running into their room. For a while, we read Christmas stories before opening presents. Now that we're teenagers, we don't wake up at the crack of dawn but we still enjoy sitting in each other's rooms talking about these memories before we go downstairs.
No comments:
Post a Comment