Christmas Gift

I've been with my husband now 16 years and have spent Christmas with his family for each one.

They have one funny tradition that I took to right away.

First thing in the morning, or at least after midnight on Christmas Eve, you want to be the first person to say "Christmas Gift" to each person in your family.

The only rule is no cheating by doing it via email or text! It has to be vocal.

Shannon and I have hidden behind bushes to get his brother, we do all sorts of fun things to be the first one to say it.

This year as I opened my gifts from my sister, I could not help but to wonder what kind of traditions we might have had if we had been raised together, if Dottye had no placed me for adoption, if Dottye had not died.

Would we have baked cookies, a special kind?

Would we have cooked a ham, or grilled it?

Maybe we would have been able to open just one gift on Christmas Eve!

I can almost, just almost visualize my sister and I sharing a room and getting giddy waiting awake to see if we could catch Santa.

In later years maybe we would have taken turns sneaking through the house looking for where our gifts might be hidden.

It's not something that I will dwell on per-say.

It's just another thing to wonder. It's another thing that I can wonder because things might have been, could have been so different.

For now all I can really do is enjoy the traditions that I have with my husband and his family, a family that took me in just based on the fact that their son said that he loved me.