Throwback Thursday...a Christmas Confession
This is a story I’m sure I’ve written about here before. Recently I was sharing Christmas stories with a friend and this one came up.
There is an 8-year difference between my younger brother and me. What I did happened every Christmas morning when we were children. Well, to be truthful, I was still doing this when he was 9 or 10 and I was in college.
You see, since I was always the first one up on Christmas morning and my brother is a night owl and slept in, it was just too easy for me to do.
What did I do?
I would get up between 4 and 5 in the morning and head to the fireplace where the stockings were hung on the chimney with care. St Nicholas had already been there.
Before looking at my bounty from Santa, I would check to see what my brother got. Santa left goodies in our stockings and what couldn’t fit in them were left below the stockings.
I carefully reached inside his stocking...looked at the little cars or G.I. Joe’s or whatever little boys got...and just as carefully I put everything back.
It’s not that I wanted anything he received, I just wanted to see what he got.
Looking back, I think part of my reason for getting into my brother’s stocking could be called a form of delayed gratification. I was doing my best to stretch out Christmas morning.
By the way...so you won’t think I’m a total load...I told my brother what I was doing when he was old enough to comprehend it. I also continued to be the first one to check out his stocking.
