MERRY CHRISTMAS.

i am sitting in my sister's house, surrounded by my family. presents piled high around the tree and the low buzz of excitement makes me remember all those many christmases as a child-- it just never came fast enough.

as i reminisce about christmas, my memory always takes me to the christmas day to top all other chrismas days. the one that is always remembered with fondness and much laughter. the day santa took our presents to the wrong house!

it was the winter of 1986 and the only other thing i can remember about that christmas was the fact that we had some old family friends get remarried in our home and so there were a lot of extra people.

just like every year, the deming brats all crowded into the same room on christmas eve, in attempt to sleep before santa came. in all reality we would laugh and giggle until dad would come in for the 11th time and threaten to tell santa to move on and not come to our house. i guess this particular year we must have been extra giggly because that following morning around 5am whitney, roger and i were awakened by the sound we never expected to hear. the doorbell was ringing.

we raced out of the room to find our dad just closing the door with a small object in his hand. dad turned in amazement and explained to us that he had just been paid a visit from one of santa's elves and he dropped off a letter addressed to the deming kids. we freaked! dad suggested we open the special letter in the family room. NOTHING could have prepared us for what we saw.

stopped dead in our tracks we could only stare at the barren tree that sat before us. not a single present to be found. nothing.

confusion, disappointment, anger.

awakened from our daze from our father encouraging us to read the letter. we broke the seal of the scroll and whitney was put to the task of reading our fate.

the letter read that santa had made a big mistake and accidentally taken our presents to the wrong house. included in the letter were directions to where we would find our gifts. luckily he had returned and filled our stockings, so at least we had something to discover. yet the stocking seemed like a small consolation prize and didn't quite have the luster of a new shiny gift. we were not happy, or excited. we felt much like the who's down in whoville- yet we did not gather 'round the christmas tree and join in song. and here's the proof:

we seemed to be the only car on the streets that morning. bundled as a family in our winter coats, our station wagon was overflowing with the energy of the morning.

i actually have no idea how mom and dad kept straight faces as we followed the directions to our prize.

"if the kids in that other house open our presents, i'm going to be so mad!"

"yeah, we should take their presents if they take ours!"

"what if they won't give our presents back, what if they think they get to keep them?"

when we finally reached the unfamiliar house, we were nervous. we didn't know what to think or to expect. dad had to nudge us forward, no one would move forward.

to our surprise, our older brother john opened the door. JOHN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE???

so it seems, john had moved into a new apartment that we had never been to and santa took all of the deming kids' presents to older brother deming's house! DUH SANTA!

that year my belief in santa was set in stone. he's real i promise!

MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR 2008!