Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for December 24, 2016

Actually Christmas Eve but close enough.

Hopefully Calvin did not get into trouble. That would be a horrible Christmas! And he probably did not get the nuclear weapons he wanted.

He probably got this:

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTXLscq9b2z8FkwQvE8p4HQRNCQEoBBYsZFoDiXVSzw2KHxg6oLHg

So what was the rule in your families? In mine, the rule was very simple. We ALL had to be up before any presents could be opened. If my mother caught any of us up by ourselves earlier than she thought we should be, it was back to bed for a few more hours!

And tomorrow’s strip will be on Saturday. He will have to get up early to see his cartoons.

Haven’t you heard of Children’s Nyquil?

My brother was a Calvin. On school days he had to be literally hauled out from between the sheets by the arm or sometimes the leg, mumbling protests. On Saturdays and Christmas he was up at 5.

Yummm, Stollen Bread. We did the Czech equivalent. We always did Christmas Day at my Grams. As we got in our early teens, my parents decided it wasn’t fair to rush through Christmas morning at our house to get there so….. We had two Christmas mornings. Christmas eve morning at our house and Christmas Day at Grams.

A long standing tradition in our house is to open one specially marked gift (matching pajamas) on Christmas eve that everyone has to wear on Christmas day.

When I was a kid I had 3 older brothers and an older sister. My sister would get up around 4:00am and wake up the rest of us. Much to our parents chagrin.

Merry Christmas everyone!

When I got to college, my folks decided it was time for me to be part of the grown-up festivities. That meant getting to bed at 3 AM after wrapping and assembling all the presents. Followed at 0530 by “Sanny Caws, Sanny Caws!” Followed by stumbling back to bed at 7.

Merry Christmas Eve, everybody!

When I was young, we also couldn’t open presents until all 9 children were up. My most vivid memories from then weren’t the opening of the presents – my dad would take movies of all the kids coming down the stairs and opening their presents. It was an old movie camera that had two lights on it like 2 car headlights – you’d be pretty much blinded by the time you sat down in the living room :)…

I once had a landlady who told me that HER childhood family Christmas tradition was even stricter than mine. When she was growing up, the rule was that everyone not only had to be up, they also had to be fully dressed, all beds had to be made, and everyone had to have finished breakfast before any presents got opened.

Make ’em wait till Christmas morn…

We could open our stocking gifts before breakfast, but the under-the-tree gifts waited until after breakfast.

Now that I’m 22, I’m not so overly eager to open my presents now. But when I was little, I was up at 7am (if I remember right) to open them!

Funny how times change.

xxx

It’s always too early for parents, kids, can’t wait another second.

Ah yes:) I still remember back in the day when I tried that on my parents:) My good old dad threw the alarm clock at me:( I still have the dent in my head to prove it:( What about my Christmas presents:( I cried. If you don’t get the hell out of here:( Your Christmas Present is going to be a FUNERAL:(

My mother wanted us to save the last slices of her Christmas Stollen for a special occasion. I finally had to throw it out this Christmas since I couldn’t bring myself to eat it without her. (She died in 2009)