A Christmas Memory

When we lived in Paxton IL and all our children were still living at home we positioned our Christmas Tree in the bay window. That put the tree nearly at the base of the stair landing. All four of our bedrooms were upstairs. We as parents knew that our children would try to figure out what was in their gift boxes if we placed them under the tree too early as in days before Christmas. We positioned extended family gifts under the tree up until Christmas Eve or whatever day we decided to open our immediate family gifts. We always had to be at someone else's house on Christmas Day so we would pick what day we were going to exchange and treat it like Christmas Day in our household. The night before we would have the children (3of them) station themselves on the stairs and pass the gifts from our bedroom at the top of the stairs where they had been hidden to the first child in the relay. He then would pass it on to the next child on the stairway. It was always funny listening to their comments on each box as it passed their way down the stairs. Guessing what was in it, whose it was and so on. It became a bit of a tradition. This was when the children were a bit older but it was fun for us and fun for them. My husband's recollection is that we were so late getting our shopping done that we were busy wrapping them last minute in our room and as we completed a box we would pass it out of our room to the waiting hands on the stairway. His memory is correct, I think. A Christmas Memory.