“Get UP, Mommy!!!! Santa was here!!!! Come on, Mommy!!! Get UP!!!!”  I felt a warm, little hand grab mine and begin to tug as hard as he could. After assembling toys until the wee hours I felt that I hadn’t even slept yet. A little girl voice joined him in his efforts to get me out of that warm bed.  A smile crept across my face and I sat straight up and said, with all of the excitement that I felt, “YAY!!!  Let’s go see what he brought you this year!!!”

Its show time. I switched the tree to life and there it was. The picture I’d dreamed of. All of the saving and overtime hours and layaway lines…the planning and wrapping and worrying whether I could do it….All of the effort that it took to wake to a morning like this was worth every little bit of it. The gifts were wrapped in so many different colors. The bows, beneath the light of the tree, were so shiny. And they’d change their color when the lights on the tree twinkled on and then off.

My two babies were ELATED!!! They were jumping up and down and their squeaky little voices proclaiming, “SANTA was HERE!!!” I begged of them to let mommy get her coffee and I’d come in and they could start to unwrap their gifts.

I’ve always loved slippers. I remember having them on that morning. They were soft and fuzzy and warm, and wrapped in my robe I sat there on the couch, sipping my coffee, and watched them unwrap each and every gift. When they’d come across some socks or underwear, they’d look at it and chuck it over their shoulder. Clothes are boring, but this mommy was so glad that I could wrap them as gifts. I guess it was because I wanted them to know that warm, clean clothes are a gift. They truly are. But I knew that they were aching to get to the toy they’d wanted above all else. And they did find their perfect toy under that tree. I’d made sure of that.  I remember it, like it was yesterday. They’d finally unwrap their dream toy and clutch it to themselves and hug it…  “I Got IT, I GOT IT!!!” It was that unfiltered joy in the light of Christmas morning that made it an indelible memory and it’ll live in my heart forever.

Thinking back, as a single mom, I don’t really know how I did it.  I remember the worrying that I wouldn’t be able to create a Christmas morning like this one. I couldn’t afford to even take my kids to the dentist every year. If my car had broken down, I wouldn’t be able to get to work, nor could I afford to fix it. There were times that I couldn’t pay the gas bill and had to use kerosene heaters and we would sleep in one room to stay warm. So…I would put the toys on layaway first of the year and I’d pay on them until the weekend before Christmas. If the “dream toy” changed during the course of the year, I’d go and switch them in layaway. Old dream toy out and new Dream Toy IN!

It’s good to look back, sometimes. I get to feel all of the love and the magic we shared as a family of three, all over again. I’m pretty darn sure that they never even knew that we were poor. Our mom did that for us, too.  It’s Christmas Magic. Pure and simple.