It’s the night before Christmas and all through the night, not a creature is stirring not even a mouse. Well, that’s not entirely true because I’m wide awake. My imagination is going wild, thinking of all the exciting surprises that might happen on Christmas morning. I know I’ll never fall asleep.

I’ve been counting the days down until Christmas for over three months. I asked Santa for art supplies. I love to draw, and I really want a Barbie doll. My best friends have one and I want one too. I imagine combing her long hair and making clothes for her. I have tried so hard to be good this year so that my dream will come true.

I keep jumping out of my bed and staring out my bedroom window, trying to catch a glimpse of Santa and his reindeer. Can you imagine being able to see him? I would so love to have a ride in his sleigh and meet all the reindeer and fly through the sky all through this snowy and magical night.

My parents promised me that Santa would bring me whatever my heart desires. I believe them.

My father spent most of his free time in the past couple of weeks decorating our house for Christmas. In our living room, we have a glass fireplace that my father made many years ago. It’s made from glass blocks instead of bricks. My dad puts colored lights inside the glass blocks at Christmas time. It’s beautiful.

My dad loves to create beautiful and unusual things. He made our Christmas tree this year out of umbrella frames that he attached to one another. And then he hung up strands of golden, glass beads all around it. He places it carefully in front of the mirror that is at the bottom of the glass fireplace. At night we turn out all the lights in the living room. My dad turns on the Christmas lights on the umbrella tree and inside the fireplace.  The lights and colors twinkle on and off. It is so neat. I know that no one else will have a tree-like ours.

We have a wreath on the front door made from huge, plastic poinsettias. And there’s a fat Santa that resides on the front stoop. Christmas lights decorate the rose arbor that my father-built years ago on our front porch. In the Spring and the Summer, it is covered with the most beautiful red roses you can imagine. And the aroma of the roses and the lilac bush as you walk up onto our front step is unforgettable. My father loves roses, and he planted a rose garden in our backyard with all the colors of the rainbow. I love to sit back there and watch the bees travel from one bloom to the next.

Our kitchen table has a little water fountain on it that my father fashioned out of hubcaps and metal ashtrays. My dad puts different colors of food dye into the water every few days. Right now, the water is red for Christmas. I love to watch the fountain while I eat my breakfast of fried eggs and toast.

My mother started baking Christmas cookies a couple of weeks ago. I love to help my mother make the cookies, but I usually eat too much of the raw dough and get a stomach ache. She mixes all the dough in a huge metal mixing bowl, and then she puts the dough in this thing called a Cookie Gun. And on the front end of the gun, you can put different shaped cookie cutters, and each cookie comes out in a different shape, like snowflakes and stars and snowmen. After the cookies are baked, my mom and I decorate them with red and green icing and different colored sprinkles. They’re delicious, and I look forward to eating them. My mother places all the cookies in a huge tin can with wax paper between the layers. And she hides them in the basement. But I always find the cookie tin way before Christmas and eat a bunch.  My mother never yells about eating them. My mother hardly ever yells, no matter what we do.

As I’m putting on my Christmas outfit, I hear my mom calling, “it’s time for you to get up. The bells for the nine o’clock Mass are going to start ringing.”

Before we open our presents on Christmas morning, I have to go to the children’s Mass at the 9” o’clock mass.  The service is really long on Christmas. Father Nolan tells us the story from the bible about the birth of baby Jesus and Mary and Joseph.

“I’ll be right down, Mom,” I scream from my bedroom upstairs. As I jump down the steps two at a time. I rush through the swinging door that’s between the living room and the hallway. I let the door slam shut. My father shouts, “don’t slam the door.”

“Susie, will you stop making so much noise? It’s enough to wake up the dead. My mother adds.”

“Sorry, Mom. I yell at the top of my voice.” I pull the hall closet door as hard as I can because it sticks. I grab my coat, which was an early Christmas gift. It’s white and has fake fur, and there are snowflakes all over it. I absolutely love it. I pull up the hood, and I’m off to the nine o’clock Mass.”

I run up to the Church, slipping and sliding the whole way. There’s a good three feet of snow on the grass. The sidewalk was shoveled yesterday by everyone who lives on Fellowship Road a couple of days ago. But there’s a thin layer of ice on the entire sidewalk all the way up to the church. Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church is only two houses away from where I live. I arrive just in time to get in line to go to the children’s Mass on time. The church bells are ringing and playing The First Noel.

There is one thing that I love about living next to the church is that I can hear the church bells ringing all the time. The bells ring before each Mass and on Holy Days, and Saturdays. When people get married or there’s a funeral and when a baby is baptized. I love hearing those bells. It’s a joyful sound.

Sister Joseph Catherine grabs ahold of me as I run up the steps. “Hold on, Susan Carberry, remember what I told you,” I don’t want you to sing out loud, mouth the words. You have a terrible voice.”

“Yes, Sister,” I say. As I turn around, I stick out my tongue.” I suppose I’ll go to hell for that.

At this moment, I decided that I despise Sister Joseph Catherine. She is the bane of my existence. She was my fourth-grade teacher. And she made me hate every day of fourth grade. She made me follow her around wherever she went and carry her stuff. Reminding me every day how stupid she thought I was. I decide that I will sing as loud as I can during Mass, I love singing Christmas hymns.

All during Mass, I keep praying for a Barbie doll and art supplies. After we take Communion my stomach starts growling loudly. My friend, Helen Hartman, starts laughing and then I laugh too. Sister Joseph Catherine comes over to our pew, and scowling at us clicks the clicker in our hand. And gives me the evil eye.

I start thinking about Christmas breakfast. My mother will be cooking a special Christmas breakfast. She will make scrambled eggs and scrapple. And my father makes the toast and butters it. Or maybe biscuits. Oh, how I love my mother’s homemade biscuits. My stomach starts growling even louder. This starts the whole pew of my friends laughing. Sister Joseph Catherine looks like she wants to wring my neck. I will have to make a quick getaway after Mass is over. And I won’t see her until after the New Year, so maybe she’ll forget about it by then. I’ll have to pray about that before the end of Mass. I start saying some extra Hail Mary’s and Our Fathers.

After Father Nolan and the altar boys slowly march out of the church, Sister Joseph Catherine signals us with her clicker to start filing out of the pews. As I walk by her, she makes a grab for my collar, but I manage to get away. And before she catches up to me, I run out the double doors and nearly break my neck, jumping down the steps two at a time, forgetting that they are covered in ice. But it’s my lucky day, and I get up relatively unscathed and slip and slide my way to my front door. I fling open the door and knock my boots off. And slam the door behind me.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Susan, why do you always have to slam the door and make such a racket?”

“Sorry, Mom, I’m starving. When will breakfast be ready?”

“Go wash your hands, Susan, and then you can have breakfast.”

I don’t know what my mother thinks I was doing in church to get my hands dirty. But I go in the bathroom and run the water. And sit down at the table. “Hi, Daddy, Merry Christmas.”

“How was Mass Susie?”

“Oh, the same Dad, nothing new. I’m starved.”

“Yes, we heard you, Susan. Here it comes.”

After we eat breakfast, my married older sisters and brother will come over with their little kids. And we’ll open up the presents and have cake and Christmas cookies. I really love all my nieces and nephews. They are so much fun. They’re so excited and happy about Christmas, and they make me feel excited and happy too. I always take them over my friend’s house to show them off.

My daddy puts some Christmas music on the stereo. I sit on the floor and watch all my little nieces and nephews open their gifts. They are all laughing and throwing Christmas wrapping paper all over the living room. My mother is busy starting to get dinner ready. Even though we just ate breakfast. My mom never stops cleaning and cooking. She hardly ever sits down except to say the rosary in the morning.

It was a great Christmas. I didn’t get a Barbie Doll, I got a Miss Joan doll. But that’s alright. She came with an extra dress and high heels. And my best friend’s name is Joanie. So, I love her anyway. I also got an art set that has pictures that you can color with paint that has sparkles in it. It’s going to be such fun to paint.

When my sisters and brother and all their kids leave, I run down the street to visit my best friend, Joan’s house. And I see all her gifts and her beautiful Christmas tree. And best of all I get to have a whole lot of Italian Christmas cookies and they’re delicious. It’s been a great day. And I start looking forward to next Christmas.

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