When you are a kid, besides your birthday, Christmas is the greatest day ever! The tree, candy canes, decorations and of course the presents!

I am the youngest of 5 kids and the Holidays around our house were a very special time, steeped in tradition. This was the one time of the year we would eat in the formal dining room, and the only day of the year we would sit on my grandmas couch in said formal dining room.

Every Christmas Eve we would have dinner and then open the presents we gave each other, even though we had a lot of kids in our family we did not pick names, my mom would take us all shopping to get presents for our siblings. They were usually very inexpensive and looking back now fairly laughable, but it was the thought that counts. Then off to midnight mass and when we returned home, try to sleep so Santa would bring us our presents.

The picture above is of me when I was about 4 years old, I got a rocking horse on springs. I could not even speak, I remember it very clearly because I was so excited and it was to small for any of my siblings to sit on....even though they tried and amost broke it a number of times. I also realized how loud I could scream to get my parents  attention when they did try to sit on it. :)

I used to sit on that horse and rock for hours, finally my parents moved it up to  my room because the constant sound of the springs back and forth was mind numbing I am sure. The thing I love about this picture, obviously not taken at Christmas time, is the look of pure joy on my face. That is the type of joy that seems so easy for kids. The simplest little thing like a rubber horse, and that was all I needed that day and for so many more ahead.

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