A Christmas Foray

A Christmas Foray

"When do you think Santa’s coming?”

My brother, Sam, and I were whispering because we weren’t supposed to be awake. And we definitely weren’t 
supposed to go downstairs. Santa had not even been here yet! We really had tried to go to sleep, each in our rooms separated by a short hallway. As soon as our parents closed our doors and went downstairs, we opened our doors so we could call to each other. Going back to bed, eyes closed tight, we both lay stiff and still, even pretending 
to snore. We were certain that even pretend snoring would help us to go to sleep, or at least prove to our parents that we were asleep. All it did was make us giggle destroying any attempt at quiet and calm. Our spirits were too excited to even feign sleep but we really tried to quiet ourselves once we heard the all too familiar “You kids be quiet! Santa can’t come if there are any giggling kids around.” Each of us grabbed a stuffed toy and cuddled under our covers, eyes shut tight again, but the stifled giggling wouldn’t stop.

“Your mom and I are just going outside to take Butch for his walk. Then we’ll be in the garage for a few minutes. Now, you kids settle down.” Butch was our brown and white English bulldog that we had gotten for Christmas two years before this Christmas Eve.

As soon as we heard that we would be alone in the house, we both popped up in bed as though someone had released a catch on a spring. Eyes wide open now, fingers in front of pursed lips we tiptoed to the edge of the stairs holding out breath. I had jingle bells on my red Christmas slippers that made too much noise and that my brother thought were dumb. He always went barefoot, so I took my slippers off and went barefoot too. Just as we reached the top of the stairs, we heard the garage door slam shut.

Sam said “Come on. It’s safe to go downstairs.”

Our bare feet cold, we stepped carefully on the thick carpet at the top of the stairs, and listened to make sure there was no one in the house.

“Sam, aren’t you glad Butch had to go out?”

“Yeah, he would be making too much noise.  He doesn’t know how to be quiet like us.”

Satisfied that there was just the two of us, we edged down the stairs, our little hearts beating fast.

“Oh, look at the lights!  Aren’t they beautiful?”

“You can’t even see them yet!  What are you talking about?”

‘Brothers!’ I thought and then said “Of course you can’t see them but the glow from them is beautiful.”  

Out loud, Sam said “Well then, why didn’t you say that.”

“Shhh.  We have to be quiet”

“Why? There’s no one here.”

“If we talk loud we won’t hear if anyone comes in! So just be quiet...”

This conversation carried us down the flight of four stairs to the landing and, rounding the first step after the landing, the Christmas tree came into full view. It was glorious with all the lights reflecting off of Christmas ornaments and tinsel. The tinsel had been hung a absolutely perfectly - each strand draped delicately beside the next. The sparkle and glitter was softened at the top by the lights under the cloud of angel hair. Our Christmas Angel, with the family for as long as my eight year old mind could remember, rode high atop the magical tree, her hand out in welcome, her wings set to fly.

My brother raced ahead of me. “Wow! Look at all the presents!”  

The amazing eight foot tree stood in a corner. Out from it’s lower branches was a circle of presents that had not been there when we went to bed. Our stockings, the old brown ones that we had to wear to school every day were limp and waiting expectantly for Santa.

Then we froze. The back door opened and before anyone could see us we raced back upstairs, closed the doors to our rooms quietly, jumped into bed and looked like we were asleep by the time our parents came in to check on us. They closed our doors softly behind them on one more exciting Christmas Eve.