There is a little Christmas tree on my desk. Funny 6 feet over is our family tree standing 7.5 feet tall. It's funny how we do things. I've been known over the past years to go a bit over board when it comes to Christmas. I finally figured out why. Here is my Walton moment:

When we were growing up there were 8 of us brothers and sisters in a small 3 bedroom single level home. Christmas day was always a trip to my Grandparents house for a giant Christmas feast. So it took almost an act of God to get the whole family out the door on time. There were times when we took 2 vehicles to get there.

So it came a tradition out of necessity for all of us to goto bed on Christmas Eve early so that Santa could get to our house early to allow us all to open gifts on Christmas eve. I remember this well because I had become somewhat of an expert on the "fake sleep" routine. My parents would start unloading gifts and placing them under the tree once they felt all us kids were sleeping. Than we would be awoken at the appropriate time on Christmas eve.

We would wander out to the living room where we would find grandma's and grandpa's and lots and lots of presents flowing out from the tree and covering the entire living room floor. We would literally have to move gifts around to find places to sit.

Than taking turns, one at a time we would begin to open presents. And we would open presents for hours. Into the early hours of morning we'd work our little fingers pulling at ribbons and tape. It was amassing.

So when my wife and I had children I tried reproducing those early Christmas memories for my own children. But I overlooked an important part of the memory. There were 8 of us growing up back than, there are only 3 in our household.

No wonder there are to many toys around here!

It's interesting to note later in life we moved from the Chicago area to Virginia. Not far at all from Walton's mountain.

Good night, John boy.