One Christmas Morning : Recollections of a small boy

Barefoot and excited, I stepped out of the snug warmth of my bed onto the cold linoleum that stretched across my bedroom floor, my eyes rapidly adjusting to the half-light of the room which the crack in the door allowed. Every day was even more exciting to me then than it is now, and each new day brought with it the possibility of fresh, and previously undreamed of, adventures. But today was even more special, because today was Christmas Day, and that meant it was the day when perhaps my boyhood dreams of new books, new toys and lots of shared excitement, would come to fruition.


Quietly and carefully I reached out for the sock that I had left, flat and empty, yet full of the hope of things to come, the night before. At first I had difficulty picking it out against the dark bedspread, but then my fingers seized upon the now-bulging sock and I eagerly climbed back into the cocoon of bed-clothes that had quickly started to cool down, once they were deprived of the warmth of my little body. Not that I noticed, for I was too excited to care about such a minor irritation when the riches of my Christmas stocking waited to be discovered. 


I determined to extract the items one by one, savouring each one as I did so in order to get the most pleasure from the exercise, but soon I was too excited to bother about being patient, and I upended the stocking onto the bed-cover, the contents spilling out in the half-dark of the fast-approaching dawn. As they tumbled out they knocked together, and something rolled off the bed and onto the floor, seeming to me to make enough noise to wake the whole household. I held my breath, hardly daring to move, listening for the sound of my mother's tread on the landing below. It seemed ages, although it was probably only about thirty seconds, until I was reassured that all was well, and that nobody had heard. I knew that if I got caught at my game then everything would be taken from me until later and I would be told quite firmly to go back to sleep. 'Go back to sleep!' I thought. How can you go back to sleep when there's a whole world waiting to be discovered in the unwrapping of a small present?


My fingers found the little orange and I started to pick off the peel, savouring the fresh smell of citrus as I did so, my mouth watering at the thought of the treat to come. I picked off one segment at a time, enjoying the lingering taste of each before I moved on to the next, getting the most out of my prize. Then came the sweets and then unwrapping of a model car and unrolling the rolled up colouring book, quickly discarded because I had no crayons in my room. Soon I had checked and re-checked every item, had eaten all that I could except for the nuts which I was unable to get into. As I had wondered before, I wondered once again at the wisdom of nuts, so difficult to open, being part of the treasure trove in my stocking.


Satisfied finally from my  adventure in the solitary confine of my room, I let the warmth of my bed gradually lull me back into sleep. No doubt in the morning I would recall it like a half-remembered dream, and start looking forward, as boys do, to next Christmas, when the excitement would wake me once again in the half-light. But for now there was the rest of today to enjoy, with the promise of untold, yet not unimagined, happiness as the day unfolded.