I know what you’re thinking, and no, this doesn’t have anything to do with me shooting my eye out, getting my tongue stuck to a pole, or a leg-lamp (FRA-GI-LE!  Must be Italian!)…. I wish my stories were that cool!  Fact of the matter is, although they may not be movie-worthy, we all have some sort of holiday story from our past that is held on to, be them heartwarming or embarrassing.  The best stories from our past, I think, are the ones told by someone else.  I didn’t hear mine until a few years ago. 

 

For what seems like forever, I’ve never known what I wanted for Christmas.  My mom would ask every year, and I would just say "I don’t know… nothing, I don’t really need anything."  She would get so frustrated, because I could never help her out, couldn’t even point her in a direction.  I could never figure out why, but I just could not bring myself to ask for something.   It wasn’t until college that my mom informed me why that was.  It was Santa’s fault.

 

When I was a kid, I was POSITIVE that Santa Claus was real.  My parents always did a great job of keeping that illusion alive with us.  For example, when my sister came home crying because someone had said Santa wasn’t real, my dad got on the roof late Christmas Eve, shook sleigh bells, and slid pieces of wood across the snow-covered shingles so that it would look like sleigh tracks in the morning.  After seeing/hearing something like that, how could we not believe in Santa?

 

So since he was the real deal, my lists to the red clad fat man were rather detailed and extensive every year.  Without fail, they were always packed with requests for G.I. Joe’s, Legos, Nintendo games and God knows what else, and he would always pull through for me as best he could.  But like all of our childhood myths, I finally came to the realization that he wasn’t real one day… and I was FURIOUS.  Trying to console me, my mom asked what was wrong and I replied, "If I would have known that you were Santa Claus and buying all those gifts, I would never have asked for so much."  Ever since then, my mom says I have never asked for anything again.

 

Okay, so it’s not as glamorous of a story as receiving a vicious beating at the hands of a cursing psychotic kid named to Ralphie, but it’s a story, and it’s all mine.  So here’s to you and yours creating new stories this weekend that you can pass on for years to come.  And while you are unwrapping presents this weekend, remember that the true gifts are the hands that wrapped them.  Happy Holidays everyone…