I: The Twelve Days of Christmas

Dad Helping me unwrap my gifts at Grandma & Grandpa Strecker's.

After last year's commitment to post a blog entry each day, I've understandably been pretty absent this year. I think I've averaged one blog post per month. To end out the year, and to pay tribute to my second favorite holiday season, I am going to write each day from now until Yuletide, also known and formerly referred to by myself as Christmas.

Each day I will touch on a different topic either relating to the holiday season, or completely unrelated.

Today, I will recount the typical holiday seasons of my youth. At school, we would all be very excited about the arrival of Santa Claus but were busily concerned with things like the winter musical or concert, the gift exchange, and all the tests and assignments we'd have to finish before the break.

At home, I would anxiously thumb through the pages of the JC Penney catalog, dog-earing the pages that had the toys I hoped so desperately to find underneath the tree on that glorious morning. If we were lucky, there would be a snow day or two when school would be canceled and we could spend the day outside sledding down the hill next to our house, building tunnels and igloos in the snow, and then warming up inside with hot chocolate, a puzzle, and a favorite movie dubbed onto VHS tape from satellite. My siblings and I would often wake up and sit next to the radio, listening to the announcer list the districts where school would be called off, just hoping to hear "USD 399: Natoma, Paradise, Waldo" so we could go back to bed for a spell before donning our snowsuits and heading out into the great white wonderland that awaited us.

The last day of school before the break was always a party. There would be the gift exchange; no matter how specific I had been in my gift requests I never seemed to get what I wanted. Then there were the movies - "Snowball Express" in elementary school, and "A Christmas Story" in middle school were the ones I remember the most. Then the bell would ring and we'd have what seemed like weeks and weeks of freedom!

Mom in our living room opening a present from Grandma and Grandpa Strecker.

At church, we'd diligently prepare (at least some of us would) for the annual Christmas Pageant where we'd get to dress up and reenact the birth of Jesus Christ or some similar story meant to convey that Jesus was the reason for the season, although at that age most children are much more excited about Santa. For me, the Christmas Pageant was a chance to be a part of a theatrical production, where I could help decorate the stage while memorizing my lines and maybe, just maybe, I'd even get a vocal solo so I could sing for the whole congregation. I craved the moment after the show when blue-haired old ladies would gush on me, showering me with praise for my performance.

Traditionally on Christmas Eve, my family would spend the evening at my Grandma and Grandpa Strecker's house. The meal would be Oyster Stew, a family tradition that we still try to observe to this day. After we slurped the last remaining broth from our bowls, the oysters having been devoured and arguments over who had gotten more of the salty, briny treasurers already forgotten, we would open the gifts. Grandma would inevitably give us a boys flannel shirts or something equally useful but not much fun to play with. I do remember one year getting a plush stuffed Grinch doll. After the festivities, we would drive back home, often through a light dusting of snow, where we us kids would each get to chose one present, from a sibling, that we could open before setting out the milk and cookies for Santa and heading to bed.

I remember looking out the window, listening intently for sleigh-bells, and staying up late in excitement, hoping to hear the hooves of eight tiny reindeer, bringing the bounty that would await me if I could just get to sleep!

On Christmas morning, us kids would wake up early, conspire together to get our parents up so we could begin the rampage of wrapping paper and boxes. My dad would usually have a video camera set up in the corner of the room to capture all the action, and we would tear into our gifts with gleeful delight, hoping that we all got the things we really wanted. Once the living room was littered with scraps of green and red paper, ribbons and bows, we would proceed to play with our new toys and show off what all we had gotten.

Once the glow of Christmas morning had worn off, it would be time for Christmas Dinner (on the farm, we called the noon meal Dinner, and the evening meal Supper). We never had a specific tradition for Christmas Day. Often, we would have relatives from mom's side of the family come out to our house for an afternoon and evening of eating, playing games, and opening more gifts. Sometimes we would go to my cousins' Grandparents house to celebrate with them. I always got a sad feeling at the end of the day, when it was finally time for bed, because it was all over once again for another year.

The next day, we would drive to Hays and go shopping, in search of post-Christmas bargains, or to exchange gifts that were the wrong size or not exactly what we had wanted. This was always a good "come-down" from the holiday season and as I got older, I almost looked forward to this day more than Christmas itself.

I feel so fortunate now, being in my mid-thirties, that although so much has changed and my family is based half in Kansas and half in California, that the holidays are not all that much different from those of my youth. I still usually get to celebrate with my family, exchanging gifts, eating, playing and laughing together. And I still get sad once it's all over for another year.