Christmas Eve

It's not by happenstance that in my 20+ years of living here on earth... that I have never, ever missed a Midnight Mass or Christmas Eve service; except for that one year I was blowing a 103 degree fever. In fact, since Superbowl XIX when the Niners clobbered the Fins, I don't remember ever missing a Superbowl. Heh...

There are traditionals and then there are things engrained in your DNA.

Merry Christmas...and God Bless us, Everyone!

Santa Claus

How old were you when you last believed in Santa Claus? I vividly remember that I was one of the innocent children to be cheated out of imagination around the age of 2. But here comes along a TV show (around 4th grade) that convincingly told us Santa DOES exist. He only doesn't exist because you don't believe in him. In fact, the show portrayed Santa visiting a child who had previously believed in him...but was convinced otherwise by his evil grandmother. That night, Santa came to visit and ran into the grandmother. He opened up his list of "children that believed", but the child's name was gone! Obviously, the grandma was to blame for this.

That year... after watching that show... I faithfully believed there exists a jolly old man with a jelly belly in red and white that lived in the North Pole. And that he'll come visit me on Christmas Eve and leave a bunch of stuff in my stocking and under our artificial tree. I even made out a list of things to put into my stocking. Of the things, I included a Jingle Bear, a blue skateboard, a blue bike...

Needless to say... I never got any of those (that year).

I can almost spin this into a religious sermon... but I'll save that for next time.