Countdown

There was magic in the air. That was how Christmastime felt when I was a kid. Not the least of the potpourri of feelings that swirled around was the almost painful anticipation that started gathering steam almost immediately after Thanksgiving. As soon as the lights were hung on my parents' house, each night I went to bed, staring up at the string of bulbs that were just outside my bedroom window. The sooner I went to sleep, the faster Christmas would come. 

Do I blame this time of year for my lifelong struggle with insomnia? 

No, but I am certain that it didn't help either. 

The other strain on my brain could be found on the advent calendar tacked to my bedroom door. My parents made a moderate ceremony of opening each little door. Shivering with the fever of Yuletide, I put a fingernail underneath each new paper door, reveling in each new picture that it revealed. Then, fresh with the memory of that number in my head, I was sent to bed to contemplate the math of backwards counting. And to stare once again at those five multi-colored bulbs dangling from the eaves. Taunting me. 

The tree kept a corner of our house busy. I don't remember precisely when we made the transition from Douglas Fir to polystyrene, but it was a direct result of my mother's diagnosed asthma and allergies. The fake tree was even more gigantic than any of the live ones my father dragged home from the YMCA lot. We all marveled at it's construction, and when it came time to move the furniture about so the living room could accommodate this plastic glory, we all took part in the process. It had to be a beast to bear all three boys' handmade ornaments and those that were annually added as part of a tradition that would eventually overwhelm even the rebar branches of our robot tree. 

There it stood, lit up like a Christmas tree, reminding me that there would soon be a sea of presents that would need to be sorted into piles and the orgy of greed would commence. 

But not for ten more days. Nine more days. Eight more days. And if my luck held out and I didn't take the life of my younger brother while we sat and stared at daytime TV and waited for the call to come to yet another dinner, followed by yet another bedtime, followed by another eternity staring up at those lights, I would be fine. 

Christmas was coming, but the anticipation was really the event. That is what time has taught me.