Christmas Wins

I went to bed at 4:15 this morning.
At 7:15 a warm, happy 9-year-old boy launches himself onto my bed.
“Merry Christmas, Mummy,” he smiles from his heart. His voice is full of excitement, wrapped softly in deep contentment. I don’t know where he got it, this inner calm, but he brought it with him into this world, and sometimes, it dances around the edges of his words filling everything with peace. I peel my eyes open and he presses his nose against mine and smiles.
And then, in the blink of a moment, he is all little boy again.

“Can we open stockings now?” he bubbles.
“If you can wake anybody else up,” I yawn, “we can open stockings.”
He bounds off on his mission. I roll over and blink, trying to wake up and wishing that the sandpaper covering the insides of my eyelids would just please, go away.

Christmas with three teenagers and a nine-year-old is a balancing act. My youngest is still filled with the all the eager anticipation of Christmas that defies the body’s internal clock, rerouting the circuitry to provide that extra burst of holiday energy. His siblings, on the other hand, are ruled by the rhythms of the teenaged body that demands to sleep until at least 10 am.

I hear my son banging on doors and turning on lights, ho-ho-ho-ing and Merry Christmas-ing like a miniature Santa-in-training. He's working a tough crowd, though, and his are the only feet I hear pitter-pattering.
And I hear them pitter-pattering back into my bedroom.
I lift my eyebrows, silently asking him if he has had any success.
He shakes his head. “I tried to wake them up,” he admits, “but nobody is getting up.”

“Well, why don’t we check on Bubba and Joey and wish them a Merry Christmas?” I offer. Bubba and Joey are his virtual pets on Club Penguin. The pets that will actually die unless they are feed and played with and cared for every day.
He agrees with a smile and I buy a few more minutes of dreamless oblivion for my teenagers. For once, Bubba and Joey help me. I silently promise not to complain about taking care of them the next time my son is with his father.

Caring for Bubba and Joey turns into a quick reconnaissance of the world of Club Penguin, whittling away another half an hour. But ultimately, the reprieve is over.
“When is everyone else going to get up?” he asks, the whine threatening to bubble up through his patience.
“I don’t know,” I answer bluntly. “Why don’t you try again?”

He thumps down the stairs, calling for his brother.
He thumps back up the stairs, solo.
Down the hall and then back in to my room.
Head down. Alone.
I open my mouth to stammer out some sort of stocking alternative but I am interrupted by the jingle of the bells that adorn my youngest daughter’s bedroom door. A smile breaks across my son’s face, and I can almost hear the cherubim and seraphim singing his joy.

“I’ll go get the stockings!” he shouts as he turns from the room and dances down the stairs.
Our upstairs hall is only about fifteen feet long, but my little one is back up the stairs and into my room before his sister’s shadow even hits the door. He is clutching two stockings in his left arm and balancing three shiny red boxes in his right. He dumps them on my bed with a satisfied sigh.

My daughter is dripping sleepiness, but bleary eyed or not, she is aware enough to notice, and young enough to care, that neither of the stockings belongs to her.
“Why didn’t you bring mine?” my daughter yawns, slumping onto my shoulder. Her blond hair falls against my cheek and I can smell the kiwi conditioner.
“I didn’t see it,” my son explains. “These were the only two on the couch.”
“Did you check the chairs?” I offer.

The beat of his feet as he runs back down the stairs is the only reply I get.
One breath later, he is back carrying four more Santa gifts and two more stockings. Again, neither belongs to my daughter, but before she can ask, my son is gone. He returns triumphant, holding the final stocking high over his head, the winning trophy.

We hear my oldest daughter stumble into the hall. She squints into my bedroom. “Where’s Bub?” she asks, inquiring after her other brother.
“Still asleep,” my youngest succinctly replies.
“Well, I’m with him,” she mumbles, and she is gone with a bang of her bedroom door.

Even though we are not all present and accounted for, the stockings scream, “Open us!” My baby cannot wait a moment longer. My youngest daughter starts to protest, but a bounce on the bed slides one of the Santa presents into her lap.
She picks it up and waves it at me. “I bet this is a DVD,” she says with a knowing teenaged smile.
“I’ll bet you’re right,” I nod back. “And if you open stockings now with your little brother, I bet you can watch it while we wait for everyone else to get up.”
And that’s enough.
That’s all it takes for the wrapping paper to start flying and the magic of Christmas to trump the ennui of a teenager.