Any Christmas is magical for a child, but there may be none so magical as a child’s fifth Christmas.  At five-years old it suddenly dawns upon a little kid that Christmas is something really special.  What other time of the year is it OK  to actually bring a tree into the house and decorate it with colorful lights?  And at what other time does a grown-up look at a kid and say, “Make a list of all the toys you want?”  It’s like the total OPPOSITE of the rest of the year– when asking to buy a toy normally results in a firm “NO, we can’t afford that!” and where candy is frowned upon as bad for your teeth.  At Christmastime, kids attend parades where happy adults actually THROW CANDY AT THEM, and where it’s OK to scream and yell at the top of your lungs.  Nobody says “shhhhhh!”

Santa Claus makes total sense to a five-year old boy.  He has NO problem at all believing that flying reindeer can land on the roof; that a fat guy can slide down the chimney (even without a real chimney in the house); and that he can deliver toys to every kid in the world in 24 hours!  And five-year olds definitely fall for the idea that Santa Claus knows whether you’ve spent the last twelve months being naughty or nice.

Alas, for many of us there was a greater fear of Santa than a fear of God.  God may forgive, but Santa has a LIST!

When I was around five-years old, ALL of those things were true.  The wonder of the Christmas season was overwhelming.  I have vivid memories from that year of eating Christmas Eve dinner at Mama Sims’ house, where every aunt, uncle, and cousin said to me, “Mark, are you ready for old “Sanny Claus” (southern for Santa) to come see you tonight?”  I was asked that very question a hundred times that night.  My adrenaline was running in overdrive.  Getting the obligatory pair of socks and a dollar bill all wrapped up in colorful paper from Mama Sims was the perfect tease.  “When SANTA comes,” I thought, “He will surely put even Mama Sims’ generosity to shame!”  (Mama Sims was famous for family gatherings and for cooking good food, not for creative or expensive Christmas presents.   My fellow cousins will back me up on that.)

Finally we got home and put on our Christmas pajamas.  My big brother, twice my age, had to endure wearing matching Christmas PJ’s for the sake of Dad’s 8mm movie camera, and so Grandma Nichols could call us cute.  Poor Mike– he was always a good sport.

We got a final glance at all the presents under the tree and the empty stockings hanging from the mantle before we were off to bed.  Mike and I always slept together in the same bed– a regular sized bed, not a queen.  We both promised we would not get up until AFTER Santa had come.  And only Dad could know when St. Nick had come and gone.

Mike went right on to sleep, but I couldn’t slow down the adrenaline carnival happening in my mind.  The visions of sugar plums dancing in my head could not be stopped!  During the night, every half-hour, on the half-hour, my voice pierced the silent night–

“Daddy, did he come yet?”

“No, not yet,” I would hear Dad say from the bedroom adjacent to ours.  “Please go to sleep, Son.”  Then a half-hour of adrenaline-rush torture later I would again ask,

“Daddy, did he come yet?”   It got a bit tense in my bed after a couple of hours when my brother threatened to knock me into next week.  Mom and Dad tried everything to get me to be still and go to sleep, but a half-hour was about my limit on keeping quiet.

“Daddy, did he come yet?”

Finally, by about 3:30 a.m. Dad knew that he had lost the war.  Why prolong the misery another hour?  He resigned himself to the inevitable.  Dad surrendered.  Frustrated, disgusted, exhausted, but still in the Christmas spirit he announced,

“Yes Mark, I think he has! ”

Dad and Mom ushered me into the living room where happy toys glittered under the lights of the tree.  I was overwhelmed!  There before me were several items from my wish list:  a toy washing machine, and an ironing board with a plug-in iron– just what I wanted!  (Yes, that’s what I wanted that year. Don’t judge me!  I had been fascinated with Mom’s job of washing and ironing, but she wouldn’t let me help her.  So I asked for a kid friendly version those items for Christmas.)  I also got a toy dump truck, and a stuffed Santa Claus holding a little Coca-Cola bottle in his hand.  And my stocking was filled with fruit, nuts, underwear, trinkets, and CANDY!   It was all more than a little guy could take in!

I played hard for hours and hours. We went to Grandma Nichols’ house for Christmas lunch, but they could not get me to eat or drink hardly anything.  All afternoon I played–  spending hours loading and dumping driveway gravel with my new dump truck, and also taking the time to wash little pieces of cloth in my toy washing machine (using real water), hanging them on a toy clothes line with toy clothes pins, and then ironing them on my own ironing board.  How much fun is that!?  (Ok, so I was weird.  But it didn’t take me long to get past the fun and see the painful toil in it all!  The fun is long gone from washing and ironing, but I still play “dump truck” with my two grandsons.)

By dusk, I passed out.  They couldn’t get me to even wake up to put on my pajamas. I had become seriously dehydrated.  I was taken to the ER and spent Christmas night in the Clay County hospital– the same place I had been born five years earlier.

It was certainly a Christmas to remember, and my family reminded me of it yearly for the next four decades. If my story had become a Hallmark movie, it would probably have been  titled, “An Adrenaline Christmas.”

Fortunately, I grew up to learn what Christmas is really about– although sadly, many grown-ups never do.  But five-year olds see everything through different eyes.  It’s just the way life is, and it’s part of the magical wonder of a childhood Christmas.

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things.”           1 Corinthians 13:11

“Lord, may I ever anticipate the presence of Jesus in my life with all the joy and gladness of a child…  

…and may I never lose the wonder of what Christmas really means.”