A tale of Christmas past

I'll start this off with the edit I mentioned yesterday then I have a story to tell you about how we used to spend Christmas morning.

When my children were growing up I had a habit of over indulging them at Christmas. It wasn't so much for them as it was for me. I loved the holiday and the giving so much that I just couldn't get enough of it. On Christmas morning, the living room looked as though Santa had emptied his entire sack of gifts right there under our tree. It was pure heaven to see the smiles on their little faces as they dove into gifts and ripped open each and every one of them.

As the years went on my enthusiasm started to dwindle. I still loved the giving but it was the fact that I spent so much time preparing and it was over in a blink of an eye once the children woke and ran to the tree. I needed to find a way to hold on to the thrill.

Inspiration hit me one year and I created my very first Christmas morning game. The kids did the typical mad dash to the tree only to find that nothing was there. Nothing, that is, except for a note from Santa. I don't recall exactly what it was but it led them on a treasure hunt through the house in search of their reward. Every year after that a new game was created and each one came with a personal letter from the jolly old elf himself. He would explain how the game was to be played and then end it with some corny message. Each year I heard groans and moans about having to do go through this. I always got a special thrill though, because it always took at least an hour to get through the pile under the tree.

After a few years of this I was pleasantly surprised one day, when shortly before Christmas, my son and daughter asked me what kind of game Santa was going to make up that year. The game they always hated had turned into a much loved tradition. My daughters favorite of all was a trivia game that I had spent months putting together. Some of the questions were hard, some were easy, some were silly but everyone enjoyed the game and that's what counts the most. Making memories that will last forever is perhaps the best gift I ever gave.

Come back tomorrow and test your Christmas knowledge. I'll post several of the questions that I included in the trivia game.