How many sleeps to go?

Are we there yet? Is it soup yet, mom? How long til Christmas?

As we crawl towards Christmas, I remember how long the holiday used to take to "get here" when we were young. It seems as though we were taunted by toy departments from about mid October.

Starting four weeks before Christmas, with the season of Advent, we would run home from shool each day to open the next window in our Advent Calendar. Some years, each day would be rewarded with a choclate treat, but usually just a pretty little picture.

A couple of weeks before "The Big Day", dad would treat us to a hot chocolate, in Simpson's cafeteria (long gone now, kids) while mom finished shopping. This would involve having abandoned our station wagon at a suburban subway station, and fought the crowds, and subway to get downtown. As suburban kids, this trip was a rare gem.

On the fateful day, when Christmas had finally arrived, we would wake early, after having wrestled with our excitement all night. We would run into our parents bedroom and beg to open something! Of course, we would be told to wait until after breakfast, which always seemed to involve an interminably long cup of tea.

The point is ... all these little things were ways to mark time, to look forward to something bigger, like a flat stone skipping across a calm lake, toward a big splash. But you see, it all had a point. Mom & Pop would say it taught us patience, but I hardly recall being patient about any of it. I do know that it built up toward something.

As I spend the day with my two year old, keeping her in from the bluster, recovering from a cold, I feel that sense of expectation returning, after a long time. I wait for my wife to come home from a hard day, I wait for gatherings with friends and family. Sometimes it's nerve racking, but feels somehow right as well.

As adults, I wonder if this expectant waiting has been replaced with something else ... something manic, frantic, shopping in an attempt to fill ... to fill something, either in us or in others.