It looked like we were going to have a white Christmas, 'cause it snowed a day or so before, but no such luck; a cold rain was coming for Christmas Eve night. It didn't hurt our usual Christmas traditions. The scraggly tree, watching Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol and the Bell Telephone specials with the Beaton Marionettes. I had to watch "'Twas The Night Before Christmas" and the "Nativity" every year.
Our family and friends will file in and out of our little house just like every year, filling our home with laughter and good cheer. Mom has painted the picture window again, and this year it's the manger scene.
Me,Carl and our neighbors Paul and Susie Avis in front of our Christmas card wall in 1963.
Our house is full of Christmas Spirit, but there's an empty place where my dog Whee-Zee once was. No nap on the living room floor together this year.
Carl and I will be sleeping upstairs in our new bedroom. No excuses about the noise keeping us awake.
Mom and I watch the Christmas tree lights in the darkened living room after most of our guests have gone, reliving our first Christmas Eve together.
It's a little tough for me to go to sleep at first, the excitement is just too much knowing that soon the Yanks and the Rebs will be in my hot little hands, but eventually I drift off.
Christmas morning comes quickly, and Carl and I are awake by six, but we wait until seven to go downstairs. We get our parents and our little sister up and start the unwrapping.
There it is in a bunch of small boxes- the Marx Blue and Gray Centennial Civil War play set! Cannons and soldiers and cavalry. The stone bridge like the one at Antietam, and a Southern mansion and wagons and everything! It even has General Grant and Robert E. Lee, and the new Centennial figures that Paul LaPann's set doesn't have. I'm too excited! I can't wait to start setting up the troops down in the basement. I'll have to call Steve Kay later on to see if he can come over and do battle.
But there are other cool toys this year.
I unwrap a long box to reveal the Remco Barracuda nuclear submarine. It's got a clear plastic top so you can see inside. There's a nuclear reactor that glows red when the sub is moving across the floor. You can remove the top and put the crew in the different compartments. The bulkheads can be moved around so you can change the layout of the sub's interior. Missiles fire from it as it moves, and you can fire the forward torpedoes. It's simply amazing.
I also get the Milton Bradley Dogfight World War I air battle game, and Stratego too.
Carl gets the Roman Big Caesar warship. It moves across the floor a little at a time. The oars move and then the ship does. It is too cool. We can have bizarre sea battles between the past and the future up in our room.
Carl also gets the wacky Mouse Trap game. It's a Rube Goldberg type of contraption. The game itself isn't all that exciting, but watching the mouse trap go into action is a barrel of laughs.
My sister gets little girl toys that don't really interest us. She's not even two years old yet, and it's all a bit overwhelming for her. She seems more interested in tearing up the wrapping paper than the gifts themselves.
It's a great Christmas full of amazing toys, and even though my brother kind of spoiled it a little, I'm having a great holiday.
We get more snow over the holiday, and a big storm comes right on New Year's Day, so we get to go sledding down Chestnut Hill before going back to school.
I'm twelve years old now and next year will be a new challenge. I'll be heading towards my teenage years and I'm not sure I want to give up the joys of being a little kid yet. Pretty soon I'll have to go to the new school that's rising up in the fields behind my house, and my safe and comfortable world in Woodbury Heights Elementary will be over.
I can see Gateway Regional High School from my bedroom window.
I wish I could see more than that.
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