Tyler W

Christmas Memories 

The holidays are some of the most memorable times to spend with family and friends, but one Christmas Eve recollection stands above all the other memories I have made with my dad’s side of the family.   The story starts out as how most of my family’s Christmases begin, with a long trip.  Whether we are visiting my dad’s family in Kansas City or my mom’s family in D.C., we always seem to hop in the car or jump on a plane.    

  This particular year we were going to Kansas City to visit my dad’s family which meant either an eighteen hour car ride or a sitting in an airport for hours leading up to a two hour flight.  So my parents brought their three kids to see Nana and Grandpa.  Upon our arrival my little sisters and I were going crazy with excitement to see our grandparents and to see our two sets of cousins who had also traveled.  Two of them traveled from Norway, where they had recently moved and two of them came from Texas.  This was also the first year we had all been together since my second sister and two of my little cousins were recently born.  My family and I started the trip as we usually do just hanging around the house and catching up with my aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. 

Since we all live so far apart, we only see each other around the holidays and we rarely get time to catch up with each other.  Then we took pictures to take advantage of all the grandchildren being together.  All being under six, there weren’t that many fun activities that we did looking back, but we enjoyed being with each other.  That year, the annual trip for the holidays seemed pretty normal except for the night of Christmas Eve.  We were sitting in my grandparent’s basement after their friends had just left from a party my grandparents had just thrown upstairs.  I remember my sister was playing the piano with my aunt when all the sudden she started crying. Nobody knew what was going on but she said that there was someone in the backyard.  Everyone asked, “Kaitlyn what’s wrong?” the only answer we got was a hysterical four year old pointing out the window.  The scared feeling that had taken over the room just moments before turned to awe when all the grand children ran to the window to see the big man dressed in red and white running through the front yard.  We were all amazed we had just seen Santa Claus and not just the helpers in the mall, we saw the real Santa Claus.

 Now that most of us have grown out of Santa, my cousins and I have come to the conclusion that the Santa we saw in the yard was really just my grandpa’s friend.  Even though the man wasn’t really Santa Claus what matters is that my family will always keep that memory.   That Christmas was what a great model for all the other holidays I share with my family, because even if we didn’t have an encounter with Santa, we would have still made memories with each other and that’s all that really matters.