Twas The Nightmare After Christmas

Tis the season to be jolly. Now come February it will be the season to panic over how are we going to pay for being so jolly.

Growing up my mother always made a big deal over Christmas. She went all out with the decorations around both the house and yard. The tree couldn't be any tree. It had to be a perfect tree. One that usually had to have the bottom cut off to make room for it's crowning ornament which was a angel that had been in the family for longer than I could remember.

Christmas eve was the longest night of the year for us kids. We had to stay in our room unable to fall asleep because of the excitement brought on by anticipation. Lying on my bed in the dark hoping for sleep I could hear the revelry of the adults. I wished that I could be down there with them. After dozing off I would wake to silent darkness. Not able to get back to sleep I would stealthily make my way downstairs and marvel at all the toys and presents that were under the tree. Working my way back upstairs I would go wake my brothers and sister and together we would as quietly as we could go down and play with the toys that were not wrapped. As much as we may have wished to unwrapping our gifts without our mom being present was a no no. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity we would go up to wake our mom.

In her presence we would tear into our gifts with much excitement and joy. Later that day I would experience a strange phenomenon. I would feel a sense of let down. Some how this morning did not live up to the pre Christmas hype. It was a feeling of "is that all there is?" Every year the same thing. I just figured that there was something uniquely wrong with me. It wasn't until I was a married adult that I discovered others felt the same.

Come February and March our household would face the hidden cost of Christmas. You see, money that was suppose to pay things like fuel oil and electricity was spent on gifts and like clockwork every year one or both of them would be cut off and we would end up spending a couple of weeks by candle light and wearing our winter clothing to bed as we shivered ourselves to sleep in the dark. Ho Ho Ho