Twas the Day Before Christmas

And not even the cats are stirring. I should emulate them. But no, am going to a Christmas eve dinner prior to dinner tomorrow afternoon out of town. Such food! Such friends! Best of all, my son’s back in town until tomorrow evening.

My memories of Christmas are strange since my dad worked the midwatch as an air controller and wouldn’t get off until 8am on Christmas day. So we usually had present opening and the like on Christmas eve. Amazing how Santa knew that. We’d go out to dinner and come back, and sure enough, Santa had started his rounds early, too. I can’t say what presents impressed me the most over the years. I got a miniature printing press (with movable rubber type) one year. A robot that ran and steered with a crank handle fastened to a flexible metal cable. Always Tom Swift books and other titles. I was not impressed with the obligatory chemistry set (which might be why chemistry never appealed to me–nothing ever worked, and this was back in the day when chemistry sets had real chemicals). My #1 present was probably the Erector set. It was a hand-me-down from a distant cousin, lacked a lot of important parts and I spent hours putting together weird projects. Nothing in the instruction book looked cool. I built spaceports and rocket ships and a roller coaster and all manner of things that ran off an electric motor with exposed gears. Just getting within 10 ft of that motor today is probably a felony.

Somehow, though the years, it has never seemed like Christmas to me until I hear Silver Bells. Patty’s favorite was Carol of the Bells, but that wasn’t ever quite enough for me. This year I’m listening to Pandora but didn’t go the route of setting up a Christmas carol channel. And the radio is no help so I turned to YouTube. I considered posting the Twisted Sister version, but that’s not right. Johnny Mathias comes closer. Andy Williams? This isn’t the most inspired video but Anne Murray has the best voice.

Enjoy. Seasons greetings, merry Christmas, bah humbug. Whatever oils your sprockets.