Sitting Vigil

Prompt: Write about a time when you were content as a child
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Christmas morning, it’s the same nearly every year. My happiness in the holiday comes from quiet repose, in the dark hours before the house awakens. There is something about that moment, glittery packages still perfectly wrapped, and the rustle of the felt stocking that creates a moment of utter contentment. It has been that way for as long as I can remember. I would get up before my parents, around 4:30 A.M., being careful not to wake my brothers. I would creep into the living room of whatever house we lived in and grab my stocking, filled with goodies, from the wall.
These stockings were not the quilted variety, no. We could never afford to spend that much on Christmas presents. These were red and white scratchy felt, our names painstakingly picked out on each one in glittery fabric paint. Every year, I knew my mother would be upset if we opened our stockings, so I would sit in the corner of the sofa, clutching my stocking to my chest, my chin resting against the bumpy, awkward protrusions in the felt, and there I sat vigil over the Christmas bounty. It was very important to see each gift wrapped up nice and tight before the storm of unwrapping, when pretty bows and ribbons would be torn from packages and discarded, leaving anything in the immediate area in total disarray.
Once the coffee pot began to burble and hiss, dripping the dark liquid into the carafe, my mother would rise as though by magic. She would tiptoe into the kitchen, pour herself a cup of coffee and start popping Pilsbury cinnamon rolls onto a cookie sheet. My father would come out soon after to turn on the lights and find me, quiet as a mouse, watching over the Christmas tree, and the perfectly wrapped packages underneath.
After they were awake, they would ask me to open my stocking, and it was always a joy to open these small gifts in secret. It never mattered how much or how little was in them, only that everything looked perfect. Once everything had been opened, cooed over, examined every way and dumped back into the stocking, I would eat my cinnamon rolls and wait, with sticky face and hands, for my brothers to come.