An Untraditional Christmas

The Author of this post is Cheryl Martinez

We do Christmas a little differently in our home. We don't give out presents on Christmas morning. We do it a few days earlier, on the last school/work night prior to the vacation. I'm not sure how this tradition came about, but I think it had something to do with lack of patience. I was never the type of kid who could wait until Christmas morning to open my presents. I would search everywhere for those presents. Once I found them, I would open them. I got in big trouble for this the first few years. Eventually, my parents began keeping the presents in the car and sleeping with their keys under their pillows. Crazy. Anyway, my son is now the same way as me. But instead of playing cat and mouse, I decided to start opening the presents earlier. Why put the kid through so much misery? Opening presents earlier than usual is also neat because we figure we're the only ones doing it. There are probably others, but they are few and far between. Plus, once the presents are opened, we still have something to look forward to. The next morning, we wake up, eat breakfast, set our home security alarm from InHomeSecurity, and go to see Santa. Instead of telling Santa what he wants for Christmas, my son tells Santa what he already received and says, “Thank you.”