Jan Goldyn, Author

Half the fun of a holiday is the anticipation! One morning when I was about five years old, I came down the steps with my little brother, both of us rubbing the sleep from our eyes. 

"I have a surprise for you two!" Our oldest sister was standing in the hallway at the bottom of the stairwell holding a red and green colored board with twenty-five numbered little windows. I had never seen anything like it!

"Did you know there are twenty-four days left till Christmas?" she asked.

"Wow, that's a long time!" whined my brother and I.

"It only seems long. But I made something fun for you to do until then." She opened the window marked one. Behind it was a tiny picture of a cute little mouse in pajamas, holding a candle. "Each morning, one of you will open a window. When all of them have been opened, it will be Christmas morning!"

My brother and I looked at each other in wonderment. "Can I open the next one, please!?" I pleaded.

"You'll take turns. How about youngest first?"

"Okay," I halfheartedly conceded. As always happens in childhood, that December seemed to last an eternity! But the excitement of opening a miniature door each morning, revealing the fanciful figure within and knowing that we were one day closer to the grand finale made it so much easier to bear.

Opening our last door on the morning of December 25th, we saw the sweet Christ Child in a manger. Christmas was finally here! Joyfully we proceeded to enter the magic that on that winter's day was right in our own living room.