Christmas as a Kid

My earliest memory of Christmas was when I was about four.  I saw all kinds of animated tv specials which promised a wonderful Christmas winter wonderland complete with talking snowmen.  I sprang from my bed on Christmas morning and ran to the front door with full expectation of embracing Christmas world.  There was nothing outside but brown grass.  Brown grass?  I cried.  Where was the snow, jolly elves on sleds, and joyous decorations they had advertised?  I'd been a victim of deceptive marketing.

Well, I let that one slide because hey, Santa visited while I was asleep - just like Mom said he would.
And that was pretty awesome.   But as I grew in age and wisdom, I found that Santa was a control freak.
 

Mom took me to see him a couple of times at Sears and the first encounter simply terrified me.  I was placed in his lap and I knew right away something was wrong.  The beard was obviously fake and the dude was just not emitting jolly vibes.

The following year at Sears I was much more relaxed.  I had noticed the other department stores in town also had a Santa in them and they didn't look right either.  Mom said it was because Santa was busy making toys and all these men were merely Santa's "helpers".  Ohhhhhhhh, "helpers"....  Okay....

So I got put up on the lap of one of the surrogate Santa's and right away he wants to know if I'd been good that year.

I knew the whole "naughty or nice" angle already from hearing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", which Mom sang a lot.  So I was quick to confirm my goodness and put in my order for toys.  But Santa wouldn't let it go.

He kept after me saying that he would check his list and see what he could do and to be good. 
So now I had this "list" hanging over my head and Mom teamed up with Santa to use it against me.

Turns out I had to accomplish all manner of tasks completely and in a timely manner or Santa was gonna be pissed off.  She said some kids even got a lump of coal in their stocking sometimes.  I sure didn't want that so I was willing to tow the line all through December.

My birthday was two weeks before Christmas and it was always very anti-climactic for me.
My birthday was always presented to me as a precursor to Christmas - a Christmas warm-up, so to speak.  I would get some fairly lame gifts like pajamas with feet in them followed by a "but Christmas is coming real soon" disclaimer. 

Well you know what?  How about giving Rob some good gifts now on his Birthday and save the pajama feet for Christmas?  I could have lived with that and it made a lot more sense to me anyway. 
But enough about my birthday, back to Christmas.