BY MIKE UNGER

Many people may find this amusing, but my one wish in life is to once again be a little boy at Christmastime. Many memorable events happened at this time.

The quickened pace of Christmas would catch up to me at the beginning of December when my mom would "sneak" in packages trying to keep me from seeing them. The minute she would leave the house, I would head straight for her room checking beneath the bed to see what I was getting.

It's at about two weeks into the month before I would remember to save money for presents. After a week of saving, I would go out and carefully select the correct present for each member of my family.

Around Dec. 20 we would carefully set up a tree and decorate it with tinsel and ornaments. After tinseling the dog and having an ornament fight with my brother (breaking half of them), my mom would intervene and try to restore order. I can still picture my brother putting on the top ornament, knocking over the tree, and hanging from the chandelier with the dog snapping at his legs.

Christmas Eve would mean presents being spread beneath the now beautiful tree. This was just too suspenseful for my brother and me. We had two methods of finding what was in the daintily decorated packages. The first was to carefully steam the tapes off of the ends and look at the present. Correctly done, the tape would restick perfectly. The other way was to viciously rip the crummy wrapping paper off and later blame it on the dog.

The next morning we would wake up at 4:30 and find twice as many gifts under the tree. Our parents always said Santa was there, but we knew they added the gifts late the night before. With the dog's help, my brother and I would noisily tear our packages open, only to see what we knew we were getting.

After breaking seven out of eight new toys, we would head for the stockings. I would dump mine and find heaps of candy. The next thing I would remember was my brother pelting me with coal and potatoes. By now, my mom would be up and calm us down. She would always mumble something like, "It's finally over!"

These may not seem like the best of times, but they will always be in my memories. As everyone around you grows old and decisions are thrown your way, you too will long for the simple life of a rowdy youngster.