Christmas

Well, Christmas is sneeking up on us. I know most of us say "it's MONTHS away!" Truthfully, it'll be here before you know it.

I was thinking about Christmas today, and thought I would share a little story about the worst present ever! I was about age ten, and still at that age where I would wake up at 5am to see if Santa had come yet. My brother and I used to sneak into each other's room and wait until 7am. That was the time that Mom and Dad said we could get up and go into the living room on Christmas morning. (As I got older, I figured out why! LOL) Anway, Chris and I would sit and talk about what we wanted for Christmas and try to guess if we'd been good enough to get it.

Finally, 7am came! And we went into the living room and got into the stockings, which was all we were allowed to do until Mom and Dad had settled in for the unwrapping session. Well, one present wasn't wrapped, and it was for ME! It was a little toy piano! I've always been a singing-dancing-making noise kind of person, so it was PERFECT!! But, perched upon the piano's little seat was Zac. Zac was not perfect. Far from it. Zac was a little yellow furry monster looking thing in a t-shirt that had his name on it. He was so ugly with his out of control yellow hair that looked like one of those women who had bleached, blow-dried, and fried out!! UGH! Why in the world had my mother given me this hideous thing?? I wanted to cry. I remember feeling like my mom just didn't love me anymore and that was why she gave me this ugly thing. I don't remember anything else from that Christmas morning except that disgusting yellow stuffed THING!

Crazy as it sounds, I dragged Zac with me everywhere around the house, and I brushed his hair back as well as I could, trying to make him pretty. I tried barrettes, ponytails, combs, just about everything short of cutting it off. Gradually, I learned to love that ugly duckling of a monster. I was sad when Zac finally had to go away. I miss him and his crazy hairy body.

So, actually, the worst Christmas present EVER ended up being one of the best presents.