I have a least favorite day. Do you? Mine may be surprising. Wanna know what it is?

Christmas eve.

Yeah, really. Of course it’s a favorite of many of those who prefer the anticipation of an event than the event itself. Some people are like that. They enjoy the build up to something more than the actual thing. Weird, right? Nah, sometimes waiting for the thing is better than the thing itself.

Anyway.

I remember one Christmas Eve my brother and I were shooting fireworks. He lit a smoke bomb. You know, one of those colored balls that spew colored smoke. He then calls my name, I turn around and happen to be inhaling at the same time. I find a blue smoke bomb directly under my nose as I pull in a lung full of the blue air.

Well, I coughed for the next hour. And everytime I breathed I could taste that funky smelling smoke.

The next year, we were out in the woods that surrounded our home when we found an old tree stand. It was a few short 2x4s nailed to the trunk of a tree leading up to a small platform about 20 feet up. It was old and rotten and rickety. Of course my brother forced me to climb it when I didn’t want to. So I whined and complained and cried but he threatened to cause me physical harm. Better the imagined physical harm of falling out of the tree than the for-sure-getting-my-ass-beat harm from him.

I finally climbed up there but it was a very traumatic experience.

The next year my dad and I were out hunting. He left me sitting on a tree stump on the edge of a field. After about 15 minutes I heard coming from the woods across the field what could only be interpreted my by young mind as a huge bear crashing through a creek coming to eat me. Never mind that there aren’t any bears that far south in Mississippi, I was going to die a horrible gruesome death BEFORE OPENING MY CHRISTMAS PRESENTS.

After a couple minutes I couldn’t take it anymore and went to find dad. As I rounded the corner on the old logging road, I saw a body lying on the 4-wheeler. Terrified someone had decided to die on our 4-wheeler or a grisly murder had taken place right there on my ATV, I cautiously approached.

Quickly I realized the body looked familiar, in fact, it was dad! I walked quickly over and he sat up. “Hard to take a nap ’round here with them beavers slapping their tails in the creek over there.”

I was relieved for more than one reason. I still had both parents alive AND I’d get to open my presents in the morning.

These are just a few reasons of why I’m not a fan of Christmas Eve. I just never know what’s going to happen. Nothing serious has happened in the last few years but I’m always alert and ready on the 24th of December.