Its Christmas Eve!

I am now 55 years old and still excited about Christmas- even though I am grown, even though my baby is grown- there is something magic about Christmas that has absolutely nothing to do with gifts at all. I know this is the same for many people and I also know that for many the magic is what makes our hearts ache for times past, and the way things used to be. I remember Christmas Eve was the very last day to get the house cleaned and sparkly and ready for Christmas Day.

I never-ever was sad to be cleaning on this day and oddly enough that is my first thing to get to work on now at 6am.

Everyone was home and seemingly doing the same things on Christmas Eve, all my cousins and Aunts and Uncles all around me in their houses too. That sweet little Church there at the front of our town, where we walked to nearly every single Sunday, always decked for Christmas and wreaths on the door, and poinsettias in the pulpit. Sweet Gam on the back pew with one of her pocketbooks that had a loud clasp on it when I squeezed it back together after rooting around amongst mint flavored Kleenex’s looking for a lifesaver. (The whole reason her Kleenex’s always smelled of mint) Come to think of it they may have been the only two things in that Church pocketbook.

Back to Christmas Eve…I could never sleep. But when I finally did fall asleep that gun would fire off in a matter of seconds it seemed, and it was time! Maybe only an hour would have passed and there walking in the door as the very first visitor to see what Santa brought to our house was my uncle Jack. By himself, he was always the first visitor. He had a smile from one ear to the other. I was so excited! Eventually we would arrange all our Christmas things nicely in our designated areas to be ready when we’d all visit each other’s houses later on that day.

I know when I started this, I said it wasn’t about the gifts, and some of these details sound otherwise but it was the love that I felt at Christmas time that fills my heart year after year.

I hope we all have some of that magic feeling today- and all our days left.