The presents were wrapped, sufficiently, leaving space for a few hours’ rest before: “MOMMMM!! Can we get up now?!!”

Which generation’s careless tradition the Eve before had plattered the smoked or pickled savories that only adult palates could enjoy? The children left to skip, tumble, and stomp staccato rhythms of the sweets.

Always: Cookies swelled along the west of the table, untinned and trayed, to give the presence of freshly baked. Fudge to the far east, near the pepperoni, suggesting an irresistible (if exotic!) pairing.

See’s candies romanced and flirted around the house. There, a box stretched its length across a coffee table. Here, an assortment winked from a bedside stand, not to be forgotten on your way to or from the powder room. All around, varieties of lollypops played “Lolita,” from canisters in corners, or even dangling from the Fir.

Youthful motors revved and refueled on all of Christmas Eve’s best offerings, drag-racing around the den and family rooms with abandon, certain their spots were safely secured on a “good-enough” list.

Until at last: Inevitable sugar crashes jarred a window for mothers to slide presents from hiding and into their evening’s dressing gowns—if not glamorously bowed and laced, still seductively covering all they might reveal.

The same children who clung desperately to the warmth of morning quilts all school year could not now be suppressed past 5 a.m. before they called down the hall: “MAAAAA!!! Is it time for our pres-entsss?!?!”

Mothers’ responding threats that “early birds get worms” were ignored with giggles, just old enough to know better. Still, both camps respected armistice, until passive-aggressive clocks could only be combatted by hot cocoa or Christmas coffee. Slippered feet padded carefully under cousins trying not to spill a drop, while hastening to the Tree.

Christmas morning when you’re not a morning family.

A Tree on a modest budget, wrapped in popcorn strings, hand-painted angels, drawings saved from years past. One smiling cloved orange dislocated to the windowsill. Bumped by the late-night deliveries, always evenly distributed between sisters both by quantity and value, to avoid any calls of favoritism that Morning.

No presents to siblings. Something hand-crafted for mom, nearly lost among the crunched boxes, while the gifted paraded off with their spoils.

Not too long to play, no time for a nap. “You could have slept in this morning!” Now dressing, setting, painting. Preparation for the extended branches. Some haughty breakfast of bakery rolls, flutes of lonely juice, with leftovers from a dinner party uninviting for Christmas children.