Christmas Past

Kathryn Smith Lockhard

I can’t help but get a little sentimental over the Christmas' of yesterday.  It brings back the memories of being a child excited about all the bright presents under the tree with my name on them.  Bright colorful paper and bows that just delighted my eyes and tickled me down to my toes.

It was a great time, Christmas Eve gathering together with all my aunts, uncles, siblings and parents, too.  Cousins, there were many, and we filled the room as we sat on the floor with legs folded.  The gifts were passed out by the oldest of children who could read and be the most responsible not to drop perhaps a breakable gift.

When it came time to open the presents we had to wait our turn for tradition dictated the order was from the youngest child to the oldest adult.

At the end of the evening my parents would load the car with all the loot my sisters and I received. On the ride home we watched the skies for Santa and his reindeer.  Almost always we just knew we saw him.

Christmas morning the number one rule was to run to my mother and get her out of bed. She wanted to be part of watching her children’s delighted faces when we spied our gifts located beneath our stockings.  We could always count on finding an onion in our stockings.  It meant we had to try harder to be good during the next year.

I had turned 13-years-old, that September and it would be the last year I believed in Santa. Sad that childhood years end so quickly.  But that final Christmas when I believed, I told my mother I wanted tangerine lipstick.  She told me I was too young for lipstick.  But come Christmas morning in my stocking guess what I found?  You guessed it, tangerine lipstick.  I exclaimed to my mother, “ See, Santa thinks I’m old enough.”