Nettie Cernosek

“I can remember the excitement and anticipation of Christmas as a young child. The house was decorated. My parents and I were all excited about the gifts under the tree and Santa Claus coming. I recall going to bed early on Christmas Eve and waking up early to see what Santa had brought.

“One gift puzzled me when I was a child of six or seven. I couldn’t figure out why Santa had brought me a little rocking elephant that really would have been more appropriate for a two or threeyear- old. I thought he had made a mistake, but my mom and dad told me that maybe Santa wanted me to just enjoy the cute little elephant and use it for my dolls.

“When I was older, I realized what had happened. My parents had gone to an event and won a prize: the little rocking elephant. What were they going to do with it? They decided to put it under the tree to see how I would react. I was fine with it, just puzzled.

“Also as I got older, I began hearing stories about the effort that went into surprising me at Christmas. Mom and Dad told me that once my uncles came over one Christmas Eve and stayed up most of the night putting together a swing set. Making me happy was that important to them.

“I was 10 before my brother, Gary, was born, so for the first decade of my life, I was an only child. We would go to my grandparents that day. One set of grandparents had many grandchildren, about eight, but it seemed like more because I was the youngest. For the other set of grandparents, I was the only grandchild. That meant at one Christmas gathering I was part of a crowd of children. At the home of my other grandparents, I was the center of attention. (My second brother, Walter, was born when I was 16.)

“I have many, many fond childhood memories of Christmas. It was definitely a very special time in my life.”