More commonly known as "Twas the Night Before Christmas", A Visit from St. Nicholas is a poem that has popped up a few times throughout my life:
- The sixth grade class at St. Jude's School was responsible for two things, 1) raising and lowering the flag each day along with the proper folding and unfolding and 2) Reciting A Visit from St. Nicholas at the Christmas show.
- I remember changing the words around to get someone to switch shifts with me at work so I could hang out with friends.
- Each year the poem gets reprinted in the Troy Record because before the Record was the Record, it was the Sentinel which originally published it back in 1823. What the publishing of that poem really meant was that Christmas bonuses were soon to be left on people's porches
One of the more personal memories of the poem is that each Christmas Eve, my sister will run upstairs to her room, grab a hardcover copy of the poem, run downstairs, and call everyone to the living room. In the years that I wouldn't be home for Christmas, I'd still get a call on my cell phone when everyone was ready.
In the old days, it was just the five of us but more recently it's turned into a damn stage show:-)! Friends from my family's past will come over, grab a brew, have a seat and for five or so minutes, slip into those childhood days of Christmas. Christmas's when you would wait up as long as possible just to see if you could hear Santa. Christmas's of old when your turn on the radio to get reports of Santa's location. Christmas's of old when milk (or oddly beer sometimes?) and cookies would be left by the tree as a treat for Santa. And Christmas's of old when the smile on a close person's face is all you need to make the holiday special.
Wait one second though! Those Christmas's are still here and are still to come! Take a second to turn to family or a friend, give em a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, and I'm pretty sure they'll give you a big smile in return.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays where ever you might be reading this.
