Christmas mourning turns to joy

I WILL always remember the disappointment.

It was about 6am on Christmas Day and I’d jumped out of bed and headed straight to the lounge room.

I was so excited as I saw what Santa had dropped off - 12 months of being a good boy was about to be handsomely rewarded.

At the top of my Christmas list this particular festive season was fart spray.

It came in a can and from what I had heard left some of the worst odours you could imagine. It was all that I wanted. The lounge room floor was covered in wrapping paper as I made my way through my gifts.

Each present was good, but there was no fart spray.

I got to my last gift and to my horror it looked nothing like what a can of fart spray should look like.

It was big, thin and rectangular.

I peeled the paper back and to my absolute horror it was something in a frame. I fought back tears as I pulled out … a signed and framed Tony Lockett 1300 goal memorabilia piece. What the hell is that? Tony Lockett? I don’t even barrack for Sydney. I was gutted. Christmas morning is about playing with your toys. What the hell was I going to do with a framed picture? For me it turned to Christmas mourning. How could I fill in the other 23 hours and 59 minutes of the day after I finished looking at Tony? I’m sure Santa could sense my disappointment.

There would have been a lot of heavy lifting as Santa trudged around Highpoint with it under his arm.

“You’ll appreciate it when you’re older,” mum said.

She was right. In hindsight it wasn’t a bad present after all.

It’s still up on the wall at mum and dads and it kickstarted my obsession with footy memorabilia which has seen me spend way too much money on signed bits and pieces.

So thanks, Santa. I may have hated the present back then, but I love it now.

And for the record, I’m still waiting for that can of fart spray.

Maybe this year.