Christmas Morning, The big day has arrived.... Eventhought we had tried to keep awake through the night, so we could catch a glimpse of him stacking presents under our tree, but we were soon in never never land, dreaming of lovely things to come. We would be up before 5am, sneaked out to the lounge room, and sure as eggs there was presents for all, christmas stockings and a empty glass and plate. The first year my sister and raided the tree and by 6am had all the presents opened and the parents were quite annoyed, so the rules were brought in.. When we woke up, we could go to the lounge room and only look and do not touch the presents under the tree, but return to our bedrooms and what was left on the foot of our beds was ours to open ( to keep us occupied, while the parents slept in.... on a farm, basically there were no days off, there was always something needed doing...) We would opened our Xmas Stocking and in those days they were a bonus to us kids, lollys to eat, comic books to read, puzzles to do, and a small toy to play with. By 7am we would be making some noises, to help our parents to wake up, breakfast would be something special, bacon and eggs ( normally we would have cerial breakfast, toast), into clean clothes and off to Christmas Mass Service in town about 9.30am. Our friends would be telling us of what they already got for xmas, while we had to say, we had not as yet opened ours, but will know as soon as we get back from church, change into our yard clothes and then when all the family be sitting around in the lounge room, then father would hand out all the presents and wished us a merry xmas and that we appreicated the gift that we received.. In the early days, we only got a shop brought stocking bag which was left on the foot of our bed. years later it became a part of the Santa bag filler. During those early days, under the Christmas tree of what to us was very precious, but nowaday looking back very plain to the current tree dressings.. We got one main present from Santa, one from our parents, one from Grandma ( mainly socks, handkerchief, singlet), and one from a favourite aunt.. On the tree there was popcorn threaded onto cotton hunging there for us to pull off and eat. On the breakfast table there would be plates filled with cherries, nuts and lollies, they stayed there till they were emptied... ( cherries to me were always associated with Christmas as the only time we ever saw them was on Christmas day.)