I was nine years old and I was a huge Star Wars fan. I was looking forward to Christmas like every kid and I hoped to get a ton of Star Wars stuff. 

Christmas morning finally came and back then I would try to sneak out of bed at four or five in the morning so I could start playing.  Sometimes I would get caught and I was told to go back to bed, but I always came out later after the coast was clear.

That Christmas I woke up early and quickly ran to the living room to start opening my presents.  Every gift I opened was a toy.  I don’t remember all of the stuff I got, but as I said it was all toys!

I went searching to the back of the tree to see if there was anything I missed and I found a present in the shape of a rectangle.  This meant it was shirt box – clothes!  Ugh.  I tossed it back and buried it under some of my sibling’s presents.

As the sun began coming up, my older sister got up.  I was the youngest of five kids and all of my siblings were significantly older than me.  My sister was already in her early 20s at the time.

“Merry Christmas, David,” she said.  “Merry Christmas, Tessie” I said to my sister.  I thanked her for the gifts she got me.  (I already knew there wasn’t a Santa Claus.) 

“Are you sure you opened all of your Christmas presents,” she asked.  “Yes,” I said knowing very well that wasn’t the case. 

“Oh I think you may have missed one,” she said.  “Look in the back of the tree to see if you see anything else.” 

“Okay,” I said begrudgingly.  I pulled out the shirt box pretending to not have known it was there.  I slowly began opening it – prepping myself for the worst.  What would it be?  A dress shirt?  Dress pants?  SOCKS?!?!  Ugh!

I cut the tape on the sides of the box and I opened the box.  There weren’t any dress shirts or dress pants in the box.  There weren’t any socks there either.  The box was instead full of Star Wars action figures!  I don’t remember the exact number, but it must have been about five or seven.  One of the figures was a figure I’d been hoping to get for a long time: Darth Vader. 

The head of my previous Darth Vader had broken off.  I tried gluing it back on, but it wasn’t the same.  I’d had been using a tie-fighter pilot to pose as Darth Vader when I played Star Wars.  I never thought I would get another one and I certainly wasn’t expecting him to be in that shirt box.  I yelled thank you and jumped for joy.  I couldn’t believe it.

I still have that Darth Vader and when I break out my old Star Wars figures, I look at that Darth Vader and remember that Christmas.  It was the best Christmas ever – nothing but toys and Darth Vader.