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Seriously, I grew up in a family that enjoyed having a lot of fun, especially at Christmas.

There was always an air of anticipation, of course, as Christmas approached.

I would spend hours on my belly in the living room, turning through the pages of the Sears catalog, dreaming about the cool toys that I might get.

Fleeting waves of panic would wash over me, and my brother and sister, as the day grew closer, and there weren’t very many presents under the tree.

Speaking of trees, my folks weren’t the only people in town who relished a good laugh.

We babies were booming and there were dozens of families with scores of kids our age, and our parents were all good friends. So when a few of the fellas went to the Blues to cut Christmas trees, they remembered my skinny, gangly father, and cut a skinny, gangly tree for us that year.

Not missing a beat, Dad dressed us kids like the poorest hillbillie kids, with ragged shirts, oversized shoes, etc., and used it as our Christmas card that year.

We didn’t get it right away. Us kids were a little miffed that the tree was a dud. (A nice tree was in the back yard for when the har-harring was over.)

That was a memorable Christmas and after it was over, we bawled alligator tears when the tree was taken down.

For years we collaborated with another family, the McKinneys, at Christmas time. Their family and ours had lots of kids either the same or close in age. We would typically go to their place for Christmas Eve dinner and the opening of a single gift. The McKinneys were Christmas Morning Openers; our family couldn’t wait and waded through the wrapping paper on Christmas Eve. Santa always filled our stockings to overflowing for us to find Christmas morning.

One of the most memorable years was the “bulletin board” year. Our home’s walls were lathe and plaster, which made putting up posters of Superman and The Beatles rough on the finish.

So Dad had a local contractor make three huge cork bulletin board that would be hung in our bedrooms as a sacrifice to keeping the plaster walls of the 1909 residence from further harm.

We were sent a-scramblin’ to get our pajamas on and get back to the living room, where magically the bulletin boards had appeared. And there were surprisingly few gifts under the tree.

Pinned on the bulletin boards, however, were a number of folded papers, each with a riddle. Dad and Mom had ginned up a combination riddle solving with scavenger hunt.

Times were different. We were different. One of my most cherished Christmas gifts was a .50 cal. toy machine gun that was authentically life-sized. I must’ve drooled over it, high on a shelf at State Hardware in Walla Walla, and Santa must’ve taken notice. Today it would be frowned upon, if not required by some law to be fluorescent orange. Back then, no one would mistake a ten year old with a .50 cal., belt-fed machine gun for the real thing. I mean, really!

We’re going to enjoy Christmas this year, fondly remembering those of our family who are no longer with us, and enjoying the bright eyes of grandchildren on Christmas morning. We’re not letting the crap show that has been 2020 change anything as we celebrate the gift giving traditions surrounding the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Merry Christmas!