Childhood Memories~Christmas 1989

It was Friday! Fridays were great days even back when I was a kid because it was the last day of school before a nice weekend, the teachers were always a little nicer it seemed, and we usually got out of school early. The sun even seemed to shine a little brighter. Yes, Fridays were perfect days…with one exception. Fridays were also the days that I had to clean the bathroom. The chores that I had while growing up, though small, seemed so DAUNTING as a child that I hated them, especially cleaning the bathroom on Friday. The only thing that saved me from the depths of despair is that my sister I shared the bathroom and therefore shared the responsibility of cleaning it. So there we were one wintry day before Christmas, scrubbing and polishing the best way an 8 and 13 year old could. We were both filled with the excitement of it not only being Friday, but it was very close to Christmas so I’m sure we were acting silly, singing out loud and laughing.

There was a big set of built-in shelves in that bathroom. My mom never used them and I didn’t know why and didn’t really care to know why because…I was a kid. The shelves were not important to me at all, I hardly even looked at them. This day, however, the shelves caught my eye. I squinted and looked a little closer at the tiny space between the closed doors. Today, something was in there and it was pink. I wondered, could this be….?

“Lindsay!” I said in a hushed tone as I pointed up to the top shelf, “What do you think that is?” I had an inkling of what it could be but didn’t want to be the one to initiate the naughty act. Lindsay, saw it too and was braver than I. She opened the cupboard door and our eyes widened as we saw what was before us. CHRISTMAS PRESENTS! Isn’t it every child’s dream to find your parent’s hiding place before Christmas? She shut the cupboard doors. “I want to see what’s up there but it will be too loud and mom will catch us.” Our little minds raced as we thought for a minute, we needed something to muffle the noise of the rustling through packages. Just then an idea popped in my head, “What if I sing really loud?” I whispered. “Ok!” Lindsay nodded and smiled. I started singing a Christmas song at the top of my lungs as Lindsay crawled up the shelves to get a better look. My singing did the trick. No one in the house knew what we were up to. Our hearts pumped louder as Lindsay rustled through the boxes and packages. We drooled over all the things we knew we would be getting Christmas morning. I don’t remember all the gifts that were stored up there but I do remember my much desired Barbie Heart Family set was up there and so was Lindsay’s red Barbie Ferrari. My sister and I decided, after we completed our naughty act, that we would have to act surprised when we opened our Christmas presents or else our parents would suspect and we would be in big trouble for what we had done.

Christmas came and we must have done a good job acting surprised because nobody guessed that we had seen the presents.

The best part of this story though, is not that we were naughty and found our Christmas presents. The best part is that sometime later my sister and I told our mom about what happened that Christmas. My mom was shocked as she learned that we had found them and laughed as she remembered where she hid them.

“Why did you hide those gifts in OUR bathroom?” we asked realizing then that her decision to do that might have been a little flawed.

She said something like, “Well, I had no idea those shelves were there! I didn’t even know they existed! So I figured, if I didn’t know they were there, nobody must know they exist!” We all laughed and still laugh about it to this day. I think we all learned something from this experience. Don’t hide Christmas presents in your kids bathroom no matter how hidden the shelves seem to be!