Connecting with Kevin - Ed. 5

Welcome to the Connecting with Kevin Newsletter! This is the fifth edition that I've written, and perhaps one of the easiest. This edition will be about Christmas in the Hicks house when I was a child, along with several pictures my mom kindly scanned for me.

Stick around at the end for a special treat. Enjoy!

"...no one did Christmas morning like we did..."

This quote came directly from a Facebook post my sister wrote on Father's Day in 2019. The post was written 11 days before our Dad passed away from pneumonia while battling an aggressive cancer diagnosis.

Christmas morning during my childhood was nothing short of magical. In fact, the entire of month of December was always infused with Christmas lights, decorations, and the anticipation of December 25th. My mom and dad simply knew how to make their kids feel the magic of Christmas.

All the cabinets were covered in Santa Claus heads, Frosty the Snowman, and years and years of scotch tape adorning the edges, showing evidence of wear and tear. Christmas exploded in our house, and I loved it.

"Remember back when the lights you put on your house were these really big glass things? He covered the roof with them. I mean covered." - Kelly D. Hicks

Yes, my dad was the original "exterior illumination" king. Clark W. Griswold had nothing on my dad. Back then, all the houses were covered in the big bulbed colored lights, complete with the little plastic clips that always broke. I vividly remember helping to hook the clips into the shingles. We had the old plastic blown mold Santa and reindeer, Rudolph, and the colored lights were down, over, and across every corner, surface, and angle of the house. In fact, one year I remember a situation where the troublemakers that lived next door continued to steal lights off the corner of the house. I can't fault them, as the illumination through their bedroom window probably rivaled a nuclear explosion.

One of my enduring memories of Christmas Eve/Morning was not being able to sleep. EVER. Mom would tell us that Santa Claus can't come until we go to bed. We set out the milk and cookies, read Night Before Christmas, and I proceeded to toss and turn, cursing the sugar plums that neglected to dance in my head. IT'S IN THE BOOK, DANCE!

Our house was a very modest ranch, and my room was smack dab in the middle of the house. Any secrecy my parents tried to use were all in vain, yet the magic of Christmas kept me believing in the "big guy". That was the beauty of what my parents provided us.

I would invariably wait until the commotion died down, give my parents time to go to bed, and then sneak out of my room to see the living room in all its glory. Full stockings, presents galore, and several more hours of little to no sleep.

"Getting up in the morning...grabbing our stockings and dumping them on mom & dad’s bed. Then finally being allowed to go look at the tree." - Kelly D. Hicks

I'd venture a guess that Christmas morning normally kicked off around 5AM when I was a kid. It was early. Mom and dad always told us to grab our stockings, and the five of us would sit in their bed and dump out the goodies. Apples, oranges, walnuts, candy, and little presents, each of them individually wrapped. Yes, my parents wrapped chap stick, hair gel, packages of gum, Pez candy, and anything else that we could "unwrap". I won't lie to you and say I carried on this tradition, I didn't. I can't even imagine the tediousness of wrapping chap stick. I always appreciated the effort my parents put into our experience. In the moment, you don't realize the "process". When I became a parent, I really took notice of the things my parents did for us, and I'm eternally grateful.

Once the stockings were dumped out in a chaotic scene on a double bed in Lafayette, Indiana, we were finally able to move onto the main course. My parents both received their doctorate in present placement. Somehow each present leaned perfectly against another present, nametags visible, big boxes in the back, and my dad knew EACH present, and what was inside. If we grabbed a present that he wasn't ready to unveil, we had to put it back.

There is one memory that has always stuck with me for various reasons. When we were young, we opened presents, but weren't really able to play with them. My dad didn't want us opening boxes of small parts, decals for toys, and the potential of things getting lost in the sea of wrapping paper and delight. Many years later, as grandparents, not only would they let the grandkids play with their toys, my dad would take the toys OUT of their boxes, put on the decals, put in new batteries, and put them BACK in the box before wrapping them! I was like "WTF!?".

I won't lie, there aren't many things I look forward to more than being a grandpa. I want to be the G.O.A.T., but that's another newsletter for another day.

"I could list some of the amazing gifts that were a big deal each year. But what I remember most was the magic." - Kelly D. Hicks

I've had way to much bourbon to remember all the presents in detail, but a few memories that stuck with me.

• One year, my parents put together a scavenger hunt to find our big present. We ended up finding snow sleds IN our apple tree in the backyard.
• In 1986 we spent a Christmas in southern Texas with my Grandparents. I was TERRIFIED Santa wouldn't know where we were. I distinctly remember getting an Optimus Prime Transformer. A BIG deal back then. (Sidenote: I remember the year because we saw Three Amigos in the theater, still one of my all-time favorite movies...here is a clip of one of the greatest scenes in movie history)
• Nintendo games had distinctive packaging, so my dad would always wrap things in other boxes to throw off our scent. He was good with the swerve. Always saving the biggest presents for last, and even then he would hide things in the tree, you just never knew what to expect.

I've carried on several traditions that stuck with me. No presents go under the tree until Christmas Eve night, allowing for the magic of that moment in the morning. We try to put chap stick in the stockings, and no one can open presents until the stockings have been dumped out, preferably when the dogs aren't around. The Night Before Christmas has been missed a couple times over the past few years, merely because the kids are older, and it slipped my mind. I might need to read it this year, even if the kids make sarcastic jokes throughout. Those are the memories I want them to have, and carry on in their lives.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading. This has been fun to write. I'd love to hear any traditions your family had during the holidays.

Last Minute Gift Idea

If anyone is looking for that last minute gift idea, might I suggest Karoling With Kevin. A fun little thing I did last year. Enjoy!

Happy Holidays to everyone. See you on the 31st where I'll write about my 2024 "Resolutions" and how quickly they'll fall apart.

-Kevin