80's on the (1)8th

Well considering we are exactly 1 week away from Christmas I figured I should probably focus this addition of 80's on the 8th on something Christmas related. I thought about some of my favorite Christmas movies from the 80's but considering Cousin Eddie is on the run and is somewhere in Canada and Santa hasn't brought me an official Red Ryder, carbine action, 200 shot, range model  air rifle the past 27 Christmas despite repeated trips to his lap and a couple hand written letters pleading my case along with statistical data backing up my claims it was more likely to shoot ones eye out with a rubber band than a BB gun but alas I am still without that famous rifle even with the special 70th anniversary model being available so I figured I'd stay away from the cinema and go a little more personal.
You see when I was a kid the week before Christmas meant practicing....practicing coming down the steps to sneak a peak at the haul that Santa brought. By the time Santa got to our house he must have always been pretty tired from putting all those toys together because the presents were never wrapped. Or he was just lazy. Which could be the case because I think him and the Easter Bunny went to the same school and had the same teacher who didn't instill a good work ethic because they had the same hand writing with block capital letters and appear to not have good time management skills because they were always in and out while pretty hastily completing their jobs.
Let me explain why practice was so important. I grew up in an old house 2 story house with my bedroom upstairs and old houses are creaky. And considering we had a 7am rule that I set my alarm too. This was instituted after an extremely early Christmas morning that may or may not have coincided with the 1 & only time I remember going to midnight mass. Regardless this meant we had to sneak ever so slowly avoiding all known noisy stairs.
After much trial and error I learned the quietest way was to basically walk down the railing without socks (one of those errors) while holding onto the upstairs railing until you were in a position that allowed you to lower yourself onto the railing shimmy down the rest of the way to the end of the banister all while holding a flashlight in your mouth. Didn't do much good if you go down there and couldn't see. Had I been thinking I would have asked Santa for a million candle watt power flashlight or just one I could hand around my neck or just think how handy those ones that clip onto your hat would have been.
We still use that 7 am rule in our household today because sleep is precious and I think I'm going to ask for a night vision spy camera to see if any of my children are following in my footsteps in attempting to gain an advantage in scoping out their presents. And why might I need this more than a BB gun??? I've come to find out that Santa gets very tired with all the last minute things like putting together little kitchens, racetracks and various other 1000 piece toy sets that are all twisty tie wired in place because Santa doesn't wrap here either.
Have a Merry Christmas and enjoy the memories that come with it.