Another early morning for me-this time it was 4 AM. I tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t so I decided to read then finally I just came downstairs lured by the thoughts of fresh coffee. When I let Miss Gracie out, I was amazed at how warm it is, 58˚ right now.

Okay, I admit that some, okay many, of the Christmas movies are far too sweet, but I tend to watch them anyway. I am a sucker for all things Christmas. At this time of the morning though the choices are quite limited, mostly repeats of repeats. I couldn’t find anything on regular TV so I checked On Demand and found some Christmas movies I’ve never seen and suspect I never will. The first, Santa’s Slay, is about the devil’s son forced to be nice and give out gifts for a thousand years. The thousand years, though, are up. The other holiday offerings were no better. The Santa Claus killer is awakened from a coma and stalks a clairvoyant blind woman on Christmas Eve or Silent Night 5 ( 3 & 4 are also available) when, “A creepy toy maker and his son are spending their days and nights constructing a series of ever more horrible booby-trapped toys, each one designed to kill whoever plays with them.” Ho Ho Ho and Merry Christmas!

Switching gears:

My mother gave us an Advent calendar every year, and each December morning we’d open a new door. For Christmas Eve, the picture was always a small manger scene. The rest of the days varied and were mostly toys or symbols of Christmas like angels or a tree. Each opened door got us closer and closer to Christmas, and we got more and more excited. My mother would tell us how many days until Santa’s visit, but we’d count the unopened doors to make the days real to us. I still buy Advent calendars for my sisters, my friend and me. This morning I opened the door to find a filled Christmas stocking. I counted only two unopened doors left until Santa.

Around this close to Christmas, we starting driving my mother crazy. School was out, the weather was often too cold to play outside and the wrapped gifts under the tree were almost too much for us to bear. The gifts were squeezed, pawed and shaken. Each had that small hidden hole made by my sister, and we all had correctly identified our new pajamas, destined to be opened on Christmas Eve. With nothing to do, we’d start the teasing which usually led to yelling and a push or two. When we were young, the mere mention of Santa stopped us in our tracks. When we were older, my mother would threaten to ship us outside if we didn’t stop. The cold was an incentive to behave.

It was Christmas time which taught me patience.