Every child is anxious for Christmas morning. Awakening to see the presents under the tree is every child’s dream come true. One Christmas Eve when I (Rosalie) was 5 or 6 years old, I woke up and assumed that it must be Christmas morning already. I snuck out of my bedroom and crept to the stairs to peek at the tree. I was devestated when I saw that the tree was empty and there were no presents! I remember looking in the stockings for coal. I couldn’t understand why there was no coal and no presents.
It turns out that I had awoken at around midnight. My parents were out at midnight mass and my grandma was home with me. I remember sitting in her living room and crying unconsolably. I waited up with her until my parents came home and they convinced me to go back to bed and that Santa hadn’t come yet but he would come. I remember trying to stay awake to hear him. They remember sitting up in bed waiting for me to fall asleep before Santa could come! I was thrilled the next morning when I peeked down the stairs again and saw that Santa had come to my house after all!
Additional comments by Joe:
To add to Rosalie’s recollections, I’d like to give a parents view of what happened. Rose and I (Rosalie’s parents) went to Midnight Mass as we usually did on Christmas. We left Rosalie home with her grandma and expected to come home and move our presents from their hiding place to the Christmas tree. When we arrived home Rosalie was awake and crying uncontrollably because “Santa hadn’t come” and he wasn’t going to come because she was awake. It took us a LONG time to get her to sleep with the assurance that Santa would come if she went back to sleep. We waited and waited as she struggled to fall asleep. We couldn’t move our presents until then because they were hidden in the adjacent bedroom and we had to pass in front of her door to get downstairs. Well, after many hours she fell asleep and we were able to move our presents and then Santa was free to arrive. It was such a tramatic night for all of us, but turned out ok.
