The holiday season is well underway and a lot of kids are eagerly counting down the days till Christmas.  That age of innocence is clearly apparent and I often reminisce about my own experience.  But alas, we all get older and sometimes our focus tends to gravitate toward age appropriate matters.

My kids, who are now young teenagers, reminded me of this.  Yes, of course, they still look forward to Christmas but the enthusiasm is not as vibrant as it was when they were in their single digit age.

The main thing that concerns them the most is when does Christmas vacation start and how long it will be.  They can’t wait to take a break from all that studying and let loose…or for others, just chill and do nothing.  Granted, we all hated going to school and valued those precious times away from academia.

I recalled the time when I was their exact age and fully  remembered what I was doing leading up to the start of winter recess.  Counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds;  time ironically moves extremely slow when we’re young and somehow speeds up the older we get.  Go figure that.

As I was thinking about this, a short poem came to mind that kind of summed up how I felt at my children’s age and I’d like to share it.

Here I am at school today

feeling down and oh so blue

I dream of being hard at play

in the hopes it will come true

Running, skating, playing ball

is what I’d like to do

but here I am thinking – that’s all

just stuck here right at school

To dream, to dream, only to dream

waiting for school to end soon

“My God! My watch! Oh gads I’ll scream!

I can’t believe it’s only noon!!!”