Christmas Day Wake Ups

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 I am very happy to be able to tell you this story now. My kids have all reached the age where sleeping in is the norm. If they had their way, they’d sleep until two in the afternoon, eat brunch, watch TV or play Xbox for a couple of hours, ask what’s for dinner, then back to TV and Xbox til eleven p.m. and repeat the cycle ad infinitum. Especially on Christmas Day! We even have to schedule their chores between nap times…it reminds me of when they were babies, except now they have bigger shoes. Same amount of work gets done.

It would have been, well, bad, if I had related this story any earlier in their lives. You’ll understand in a moment.

I vividly remember one Christmas when I was ten or eleven years old. It had been a great lead up to the Big Day – school had let out at least five days before, there was two feet of snow on the ground but it was still warm enough to play hockey and go sledding without dressing up like the Michelin Man. My folks had a bit of a wild look in their eyes, but we were used to that. The wild look usually appeared if all of us kids were home for more than three days.

Anyway, we had a tradition in our household. My Dad would set a time limit on when we could get up in the morning to open presents. The years we went to Midnight Mass were easy – we stayed up until after Mass and we got to open our gifts (the trick was staying up during Mass). This year was a bit different. We went to an early Christmas Eve Mass, so the rule was we had to wait until Christmas morning to dive under the tree.

My Mom when she said she didn’t mind when we woke her up. Yippee! Five a.m. on the dot! My siblings and I were about to set our alarm clocks when my Dad said, “Okay, you can wake up your Mom, only if you knock on her door and not mine”.

This threw us for a loop. One master bedroom, one door for the pair of them. Darn, how were we going to get around this one? As we headed up to bed, my Dad had a smug look on his face. He was sure to get up around 7:00 a.m., spoiling at least two hours of flying wrapping paper and screams of delight. Did he not understand? 

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(I understand now, having been up until 6:45 a.m. putting together “easily assembled” toys. Sorry, Pop.)

We kids struggled with the problem. The answer came to me in a flash. The year before, my folks bought me a electric guitar with an amplifier. It was a small practice amp, just half the width of say, a standard master bedroom door. Stay with me folks…

After everyone went to bed, I snuck out and told my brother and sister the plan. I got a piece of paper, cut a long, thin strip out and taped it vertically down the middle of the door. I put a little label that said “Mom” on one side of the door and one that said “Dad” for the other side.

Giddy, I went back to bed and set the clock for 5:00 a.m. At the appointed hour, I met my siblings in the hallway and prepared. I have to say that I hadn’t really practiced the guitar very much over the past year, but I did know about three chords that I could play. If all else failed, I would just pound the strings.

Amp set at ‘10’, power on, siblings hiding behind the laundry basket, just in case, the concert began! Within the first three bars, Dad had jumped out of bed and yanked the door open, ready to cancel Christmas. Secure in my own special logic, I simply pointed to the bottom of the door and mentioned that the speaker was in front of Mom’s door, not his. Dad tried to say something, anything, but lost the battle. Shaking his head, he and Mom grabbed their robes and we all headed downstairs.

The flying wrapping paper did not disappoint.