memories of a Christmas present past

It’s officially after Thanksgiving, so now I can partake of my Christmas playlist at leisure. My iPod’s been dying to play this playlist since April — I know because it’s tried to slip the occasional Christmas song into normal music, like it’s so sly. Skip button, buddy.

A few minutes ago O Little Town of Bethlem began playing, and I was suddenly thrown into a flashback of some eighteen-odd years ago when my sister and I got matching Red-Nosed Dog plushes that played tinny music while its nose flashed. We got them Christmas Eve at my grandparents’ house and we were dying to get home in fear Santa would skip over our house ’cause we weren’t in bed. I remember feeling very antsy, and it would only get worse each time the weatherman came on TV to show us kids where Santa was via radar. Once Santa was shown entering the northeast corner of the state, I think we drove my parents crazy enough to take us home.

I rather enjoyed that Red-Nosed Dog. My sister and I would take them into a room with the lights off so we could see the flashing nose glow bright against the darkness. It didn’t matter to us that they just played Christmas music; we still found them just as entertaining in July as we did in December.

It’s funny how just a little clip of a song can throw you into another time like that. I just experienced those last two paragraphs in the space of a second.

I got a Thundercats sword, claw glove, sheild, and belt that year. Thankfully we made it home before Santa came to Shelby County, though I was hoping silently on the way home that Santa would have already come and gone, and we could have Christmas Day on Christmas Eve. But no, we had to wait until 2 a.m. in the morning, as usual.