My first college paper is due tomorrow for my english class. Our assignment: to recall a memory. describe it in detail. have a brief introduction to it, and a short reflection at the end. 3-5 pages long.
Beware, it’s kind of sad.
Memories are the key to the past. When dwelled upon, you can take yourself back in time almost as vividly as if you were really there again. Though not always pleasant, memories make up who we are and often times trigger emotions and change how we feel.
It was the night of Christmas Eve 1996. There was freshly fallen snow on the ground and the icy chill of the cold was enough to send shivers down your spine. I sat inside my furnace-heated house and snuggled with my dad on the couch. I held my favorite blanket as we watched the news, waiting for the weather man to announce Santa’s estimated time of arrival.
It was a ritual, every year we watched for where Santa was on the radar and I was to be in bed and asleep before he arrived. The time was never later than midnight, and I always went to bed at least an hour beforehand, just in case Santa was ahead of schedule. But this year was different, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed anxious for the gifts I’d be receiving in the morning. Millions of thoughts were running through my sleepy, yet wide awake ten year old head. Finally coming to the conclusion that I wouldn’t be entering dreamland, I took my flannel-clad body back out to the living room where my dad was still watching TV. The presents were already distributed across the floor. Wrapped in paper covered in reindeers and Christmas trees, the big and small boxes all had my name on them.
My mom decided this would be a good year to tell me there was no Santa Clause. Though I’d already pretty much come to this conclusion on my own, the thought of the jolly old fat guy coming down my chimney was exciting to me. It was the best part of Christmas, the part I always looked forward to. The routine of leaving Santa a letter and some cookies was part of the Christmas joy and I was sad to find out it was never really real. As the news of no Santa Clause passed, I went ahead and opened the presents then, instead of waiting until morning. Amongst the Barbie dolls and the other coolest toys at the time, there was one gift that sticks out – the only one I remember now. It was a karaoke machine, something I didn’t even ask for. I wouldn’t realize the significance that machine held until many years later.
That morning around two o’clock, after we’d opened all the presents, my dad and I sat up the karaoke machine and played with it. It was the kind you could record tapes with and record what was on the radio, giving the effect that you were actually on the radio. As I picked up the microphone for the first time, I said, “Hey Dad! What do you want to do?”
“Let’s ‘cord on the radidioski,” he replied.
Not knowing what a radidioski was I asked him for clarification, to which he replied, “it’s something they used to have when you were little… but you don’t remember it.”
My dad and I “hosted” our own radio show; we called it Davis Country Christmas. We sang songs, goofed around, told jokes, gave out door prizes, introduced special singers and just had fun. We even had a one-eight hundred number people could call to order our tape, which was creatively announced 1-800-Davis-Country-Christmas which translates to 1-800-328-472-686-879-247-478-627. The door prizes given out were all seemingly rigged to make our family members the winners. “Door prize number 64!” my dad exclaimed into the microphone, “That’s Adam Davis! He’s won a set of encyclopedias from Britannica!”
“Number 87! Number 87! Oh, that’s Liana Davis! She won a…. it appears to a poinsettia!”
After a couple numbers were drawn, we went back to our “show” in which my dad would interview someone else. My favorite part of the tape is when he introduced the first performer. “I promise our first singer will be a treat, ladies and gentlemen. She’s been working really hard on this song, she’s up and coming in the music industry. It’s the one person I love more than anyone else in the whole world. Give it up for Lynn Davis!” As I proceeded to sing the Jesus Freak song from the latest DC Talk album, I looked over at my dad who was just smiling at me, letting me know he was so proud of me, even if my singing was off-key.
We finally ended our tape by asking our live audience members to make sure they had a designated driver, thanking them for coming and wishing them a Happy New Year. I did not realize or even imagine how special that tape would be to me in a few short years. My dad died in December of 2000, five days after Christmas. As I was growing up he was an alcoholic, and my parents divorced when I was twelve. I do not have many fond childhood memories of my dad. That night we made that tape is one of the best and most tangible memories I now have with my dad. That tape contains fifteen of the best minutes we ever spent together.
Most girls have their dads there when they get their first boyfriend, when they go to their senior prom, when they graduate high school, when they get accepted to college. I missed out on all of that. But when I play that tape, that time comes rushing back and I remember the good times I had with my dad. I remember the times when he was there and I could just call him to talk. I remember the days he would pick me up early from school on half-days so we could go out to lunch together. I can hear his voice and remember the way he looked at me so proud that night. I can hear him say he loves me more than anyone else in the whole world and for a moment I smile.
to 
I give yesterday a :-/
