Thinking back

I can remember Christmas Eve as a child... that eternal-never-ending-eyes wide open-sleepfree-night.   And after finally nodding off for what seemed like the whole night, we would get up and go downstairs for a quick peek, only to be chased back to bed by my dad.  By that time it was all of 2 am, and the eternal night began all over!!  Finally daylight would arrive, and we were allowed to come downstairs and see what Santa had left for us.  One year it was a doll house, another year it was new pair of ice skates, and then there was the time both Judi and I got beautiful "Bride dolls".  Ah, I can even conjure up the smell of that new doll if I close my eyes.

Lovely, sweet memories of a kind of excitement never again matched by anything since....