Monday Muses- Childhood

     The best Christmas of my life was also a sad one.

     It was awesome because I was 6 years old and still believed in Santa Claus. So I woke up at 3am and snuck downstairs and saw a HUGE pile of present’s waiting for me and my brother. So I ran upstairs as fast as I can and threw myself into my mom’s bed. I shook her and yelled “Mommy mommy Santa came let’s go!” She looked at the clock and saw how early it was but she didn't care. She got up and told me to wake up my brother. So I threw myself onto his bed and shook him awake. His eyes lit up when I told him that it was time to open presents. So almost the whole family went downstairs and gathered around the Christmas tree with all the lights off and the Christmas lights on and we put a Christmas CD into the music player and listened to it while we opened presents.

     Almost the whole family.

     Me and my brother loved all of the presents we got from “Santa” and our eyes lit up with excitement and joy as we opened each present. But my mom’s eyes lit up even more than ours when she saw our reactions. Me and my brother took turns opening presents so that my mom could focus on only one of us at a time since she was the only one watching us open them.

     She was the only one.

     Where was my dad?

     He wasn't here, was all I knew at the time. And that’s actually still all that I know about the situation now. A lot of people think that their issues about their parents not getting them the things that they wanted and not getting the coolest things.

     But no. An actual problem is when one of your parents isn't even there to see their children open their presents. An actual problem is when back then you actually had money to make “a Christmas list for Santa.”

     Those are real problems.