Christmas is my favorite holiday. I look forward to it on November 1st. Yes, I am the person who will decorate my house the day after Halloween. Sorry, but I'm not sorry.
Christmas isn't my favorite holiday because of the gifts under the tree that I will get to open, which is fun to do. It's not my favorite holiday because I like to give presents, which I do. It's not my favorite holiday because it's the day we celebrate Christ's birth, which is an added plus but Jesus wasn't even born on that day.
Christmas is my favorite holiday because of all the family traditions that are wrapped into it. From watching "Scrooge" after breakfast for dinner on Christmas Eve, waking up early to open presents and enjoying "White Christmas" that evening, I could tell you what I love about each of those traditions. But my favorite tradition was one started by my brother and I when I was eleven.
One Christmas Eve, we started to go to bed. My brother came into my room and whispered, "We should sneak out to get our stockings tonight and see what's in them."
I was down. It sounded exciting. We both set our alarms for 2:30 a.m. When they went off, I woke up and ran into his room. We both decided it was best if I was the one to go to the living room and grab the stockings. I was younger and quieter when I walked.
Our bedrooms were right next to each other on one end of the house. On the other end was my parents' room. Their bedroom door was open and led into the living room.
So, I started out. I tip-toed down the hallway and turned into the kitchen. Our house was old and all the floors were tile or hardwood. Hitting certain spots guaranteed a loud creak.
I knew the spots, though.
I turned around a corner and realized I could see my parents bed from the kitchen, which meant that if they heard any noise and woke up, they would see me. I got down on all fours and started to crawl through the rest of the kitchen.
The house had a weird, open layout. The kitchen led to the breakfast room then to the dining room and then the living room. The breakfast room also led to the den which could lead to the living room. Going through the dining room was the normal path, but it was closer to where my parents were sleeping.
I made the quick decision to go through the den. I crawled into the living room, past the couch. The cat was asleep on there and It woke up to see me on the ground. She stretched and started to stir. I kept going, crawling past the tree.
Suddenly, music started playing.
Loud music started playing.
I panicked and looked at the tree to see the motion detector ornament my grandma had sent us. Curse that thing.
My parents started to stir.
"What is that?" I heard my mom mumbled.
"It's that dumb ornament," my dad answered. I heard my dad get up from the bed and I only had a quick second to hide. I slid across the floor and hid behind the couch in the shadows.
The cat was now fully awake. She walked across the couch towards my dad, seeing he was awake, too.
He grabbed the ornament from the tree and looked over to the couch where the cat looked happy to see him. "Dumb cat," he muttered in his sleepless state.
He thought she set the ornament off.
My dad threw the ornament in the trash and then went back to sleep. I crawled back to the tree and stood up to reach the stockings hanging nearby. I put the hooks of the stockings in my mouth and crawled back to my brother's room.
We emptied our stockings on his bed. We traded and ate some candy. We reloaded the stockings and I crawled back into the living room to place them back in their spot. The cat was now back asleep on the couch and didn't wake up when I came in or when I left.
Over the years, this tradition of waking up at 2:30 to peek into our stockings early has taken place. They have been less eventful than the first time, but none the less fun. One year I did walk into my mom actually filling our stockings. Her back was to me so I just quietly backed out of the room and waited for her to finish. This has become one of my favorite Christmas traditions.
