Emma's+Christmas+Morning

Christmas is an eagerly awaited time for almost every child I know. Because I always was an early riser, I fondly remember waking up before the crack of dawn to rush downstairs and behold the great bounty left by the generous and magical hero of Christmas, Santa Claus.

For this reason, I was quick to spot this same trait in my eldest daughter, Emma. From an early age, I could tell she would be hard to encourage to sleep in on this most anticipated of mornings, but this knowledge posed a significant problem for me: I didn't want to miss her moment of discovery. As her mom, I wanted to be there when she came into the living room, to catch the look on her face as she first saw the wonders beneath the tree. However, it was clear that on Christmas morning, Emma waited for no mom. Emma was not to be stopped.

We tried to encourage her to go back to bed when she woke up before the breaking of day on Christmas mornings, or at least to wake us up before going out to find her gifts. One year, I actually went to the trouble of gift-wrapping the door to the living room, so she couldn't peek at ther presents without loudly tearing through the holiday paper, inevitably waking her parents. Though that took quite a bit of effort, it was worth it to get to share the moment of joy with her.

And, Matthew and I told ourselves, it was only while she was little. As she got older, her gifts would become naturally less exciting. Also, now she had a younger sister, who would take the role of being the early bird in charge of waking up the rest of the family. Surely, when she became a teenager, Emma's natural desire to sleep in would take over, right? Wrong.

After being up late this past Christmas Eve, my bed was warm and cozy, when I was awakened by a scuffling noise coming from the dining room like an intruder skulking around the house. The clock on my nightstand glowed 4:30 am. In my delirium, I wondered, 'Could it be the Grinch?' More likely, it was Nora, but she'd been coaxed to sleep in our bed, so we could be certain to know when //she// woke up. But what if it was a burglar? In my bathrobe I crept around out into the hall, past the bathroom and around through the dining room, where I could see the warm glow of the enchantingly lit Christmas tree. With my sleepy eyes, I strained to make out what was going on.

Flash! Snap! A blinding light caused me to pinch my eyelids closed. Upon regaining my vision, I could make out a figure in a red union suit, crouched like a large toddler. It was my teenage daughter. Her stocking dumped out on the carpeted floor, she was surrounded by the trash of a half-dozen chocolate candies and opened trinkets. In her hands was a shiny red camera, no doubt a gift left by Santa, and the cause of the bright flash. She had welcomed me by taking my picture. Red eyed and touseled, she looked gleefully and shamelessly up at me and exclaimed, "I GOT A CAMERA!!"

I was furious. I felt my temperature rising steadily up to my face, which flushed, burning my cheeks a deep pink. I could not believe that, while my guard was down, she had again robbed me of seeing her moment of Christmas discovery. What's more, she had made a huge mess. I imagined Nora coming out to look at Santa's treasures and seeing instead a bunch of trash and packaging, because her teenage sister couldn't wait through the night.

"WHAT are you doing?!" I exploded in the fiercest whisper I could muster. "IT'S FOUR IN THE MORNING!"

"I know!" she chirped excitedly, clearly not registering my rage. "I waited a whole half hour!" Livid, I ordered her back to bed immediately, and turned to head back to my own warm bed. "And clean up this trash," I snapped on my way.

Heading back to bed, and safely out of Emma's view, I smiled to myself. I smiled because there is something sweet about a child who refuses to give up on the enthusiasm of youth. Being a parent is really bittersweet. Your children seem to be constantly "growing out" of things. They grow out of their clothes, they grow out of certain toys, and for a while, they seem to even grow out of needing you. It is so reassuring to know that, no matter how old they get, there are some things that some children never outgrow.