It’s the Side Stories that Make Christmas Memories

The delights of Christmas Eve through New Year’s Day are nothing without their many quirks and side stories.  

We were always Christmas Evers. Christmas Day was for rest, playing with toys and visiting. In my early years, I remember opening gifts the night before Christmas Eve, which would make it Christmas Eve Eve. This was so we could be part of a large gathering on Christmas Eve at the home of Wisconsin relatives.

Of course, it seemed cool to be able open your presents a day early. But after the last present was opened there was that moment of silence when we each realized that that was it. There would be no more presents tonight. Just to be sure, we dug through the wrapping paper and carefully searched around the tree and behind the couch and chairs to be sure there wasn’t a misplaced stash somewhere. Nope, nothing.

Suddenly, someone would shuffle through the knee-deep wrapping paper, and then we all did. It was the diversion we needed and soon you couldn’t hear a thing. This did not last long, as parental discretion took over and we were told to gather up all the wrapping paper.

But we had just as much fun picking it off the floor and crinkling each handful into a ball before tossing it into a black plastic garbage bag someone was holding across the room. Two points! A small war started as soon as someone got hit by one.

In the Heat of the Night

Again, the folks put a stop to it when tree ornaments started falling.  All that jumping around might also put the furnace out. That might have been a good thing since it was about 90 degrees with all the people. We often had to open an outside door to let in some cold fresh air.

While cleaning up, we also gathered up our presents into empty boxes or laundry baskets. The new shirts I received were put at the bottom, still pinned in their packages until Mom made me try them on about March.

It was too late to figure out a new toy that probably needed batteries anyway. Unfortunately, there wouldn’t be much time in the morning to play with them before leaving for Wisconsin.

We knew that the gifts we exchanged with our relatives were just small gifts, likely bought at a Crazy Day sale somewhere. The worst part was that we had to watch the relatives open their presents. It was their Christmas Eve, after all. And our new toys were back at home, some with the cellophane still intact.

We couldn’t bring them with and we were losing precious vacation time to play with them. On top of that, after finally getting home, we had to keep our coats on for several hours because it took that long for the old fuel oil furnace to warm the house. It had one vent in the kitchen and one in the dining room.

One Christmas my brother Warren got a Fat Cat battery-operated truck that could climb over stuff. One of its plastic wheels melted because it was left near the dining room vent. That basically was the end of that toy.

The Science of Christmas Vacation

In those days we always had two weeks off for Christmas vacation (now called winter break). We didn’t want Christmas Eve to be the first day or two of vacation because the fun part would be over too soon and we’d get bored. If Christmas was late in the week we would either be in the way or we would be given numerous chores to do. With it midweek this year, kids will experience some of each.

One thing I’ll never understand about Thanksgiving and Christmas is the festive towels everyone hangs in the kitchen and bathrooms. They’re colorful and pretty but all the embroidery on them makes them pretty useless at drying anything. They were just to look at, Mom would say. She would find us some old towels to use.

We soon were tired of our presents and half of them either needed more batteries or were broken. But it was time to return to school anyhow and that was hard – for about a minute. Once we learned what cool things everyone got and what they did during vacation, Christmas was soon forgotten.

And that’s when we started planning our spring break.