Growing up in the Schmeltzer family at Christmas time meant a few traditions.

Going to midnight mass at St. Peter’s Cathedral with the family, listening to Johnny Cash’s Christmas album over and over and the raggedy old blanket.

The most treasured tradition was this raggedy old blanket. The raggedy old blanket was what separated our kid’s rooms from the living room. You see we had two bedrooms for the six of us siblings. Three boys in one room and three girls in the other. We did not know any different so it never seemed like we were crowded, but the blanket was what separated the gifts from Santa and us.

This blanket was a heavy old blanket that we could not see through into the living room. My dad would nail it up around this threshold separating the living room from our bedrooms so that if Santa left any cool gifts unwrapped, we could not see them.

The memories of standing behind this blanket make me want to go back in time and see my brothers and sisters as we anticipated Santa’s arrival.

As 4 a.m. rolled around, one of us kids, usually either me or my sister Teresa would get up and systematically wake all of the others. By 4:15 a.m. all six of us would be up waiting by this blanket, carefully trying not to peek through.

It would then start, “Mom, Dad, can we get up?”

“Yell it again.”

“Mom, Dad, can we get up?’

A groggy, “Go back to bed it is too early,” we would hear from my mom’s voice.

Oh no.

After a couple more minutes behind the blanket, we would try again.

“Mom, Dad, I think Santa came.”

“Hold on” my dad would yell from my parent’s back bedroom. “Let me check.”

“Holy crap!” Dad’s checking if Santa came!

Then we would hear my dad shuffling around the kitchen, making coffee, while saying things like. “Oh, my.” and. “Wow, that’s nice.” He said just enough to tease us and also to build up our anticipation behind the old blanket.

The next sound was usually my dad pouring coffee for my mom and my mom’s voice saying, “Wow, I didn’t think the kids were this good this year,” and, “That Santa sure is a nice fellow.” All of which built our anticipation up to a fevered pitch or at least a pitch enough to force one of us to go into the bathroom to pee.

My dad would then walk over to the tree and we would see a more lighted up blanket from our side because the tree would light up the whole living room, thus reflecting on our blanket and making it shine.

“Can we come out?” I would yell.

“Well, Mom, what do you think?” my dad retorted.

“Do you think you kids have been good enough?”

“Yes!” we would all yell.

My dad would then say, “Well I should probably count to three.” building up the anticipation even more — gosh, now I had to pee.

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

And with that our old blanket came tumbling down, ripping the spots were it had been lightly nailed just a bit.

We would be tripping over each other trying to get to the gifts Santa brought. Between the couple hours of sleep and the excitement, we all were in a world of happiness and love.

After screaming and showing each other the unwrapped gifts that Santa brought us, all of us would settle into our spots on the couch and floor and my mom would sit in her rocker as my dad did his yearly duty of handing out presents.

It was fun to see what everyone got each other and then at the end of handing out presents, my dad would always give my mom his gift to her. She would open it and then we would all give her a big hug and kiss.

My dad would then give her a big hug and kiss and then always make his way over to the old blanket, unhook the nails and gently fold up the blanket for use the next year.

Merry Christmas to everyone and their family tradition and Merry Christmas to that old blanket.

Tribune Publisher Scott Schmeltzer’s column appears every Thursday.