Among my earliest memories of Christmas is of when I was three or four years old. We were decorating the tree a week or so ahead of time. My parents were doing the most of it, I suppose, but would hand a delicate glass ball to my older brother or to me from time to time to hang on the lower branches of the tree. After hanging one of the decorations, I sat down. Unfortunately, I did not carefully observe my surroundings and chose to sit where a box full of ornaments had been placed. Crunch!

Shortly after the excitement died down and the breakage was cleared away, I was given another ornament to hang. I sat down. Unfortunately, I did not carefully observe my surroundings and chose to sit where a box full of ornaments had been placed. Crunch! again.

Obviously one of us was not learning our lesson from this.

Another much dearer memory is of a somewhat more recent Christmas. I was married then and both of my daughters were to be with my wife and me at Christmas in our tiny house. (Kelly, my oldest, was from a previous marriage and spent alternate holidays at her mother's home.) Kelly was about seven and Lacy was about three.

My wife and I had been planning and gathering construction materials for weeks toward the building of a gigantic playhouse that was to occupy about a quarter of the kids' bedroom. By Christmas Eve, I had pre-sawn and pre-fitted nearly all of the pieces. There was no way to hide the entire project. I bolted together the frame of 4X4 timbers in the room. Kelly cleverly surmised that it was to become a crèche. I let her continue to think that. (Carpenters among you might wonder at the heavy construction materials. The playhouse was to stand only five feet tall. A sheet of ¾ " plywood formed the roof. The wall on the long side of the playhouse went all the way to the ceiling. But on the short end the wall was only five feet tall. The space above the playhouse was to be used for general storage - sort of an attic. The short side allowed easy access to the storage while the long side wall hid it.)

Evening came and my wife took the girls to her parents' house. The moment they were out of the driveway, I began working like a madman. First, I put the plywood roof in place. Then I attached the panel boards for the walls. I cut out the windows and sandwiched the openings between some old picture frames. A scrap of carpeting was put on the floor. Then I built the "stone" fireplace and hearth out of plywood scraps and some old (stone print) linoleum. A combination toybox/window seat was installed. Then a tiny, storebought stove and sink were put in place. Next, the window box was hung and the artificial flowers installed. The mailbox was put in place. And then…well let's just say that I was almost finished when I saw that it was 5:30 AM. My wife brought the sleeping girls home at about 6:00 and put them in our room.

The girls eventually awakened. They headed straight to the gifts under the tree. After all the unwrapping was done, the kids wandered to their room to play while they waited for breakfast.

When they arrived at the doorway...You have never seen such wide eyes! Such slackjaw smiles! No squeals of delight could have been any louder or more joyful than those that filled the house on that morning.