Annual Christmas Speech

Like clockwork in November, my mother would start her annual Christmas Speech. Most kids get the "Santa's Watching You, So You Better Behave" speech. Ours was quite different. She would start off with Santa has had a tough year. Then, she would go on to explain that Santa has a lot of kids to buy presents for, so we shouldn't expect much. We quickly learned that the number of presents had nothing to do with what kind of year "Santa" had. It was solely based on the amount of shopping my mom was in the mood for. Usually, she ended up buying way more than she had anticipated. Without doing inventory, she would continually feel like she hadn't bought enough. I am not saying that we were lavished in gifts, just that the "tough year" we had been hearing about never manifest itself on Christmas day. I have been thinking about this tradition and laughing about the idea of her giving us the speech this year when arrive in California. I think this may be one of those traditions that has fallen by the wayside.