I never liked the day to end. Especially on Christmas Eve. I looked on last time at our brightly lit Christmas tree glimmering in the dark living room.

The bottom of the tree looked bare. Tomorrow it would be different. Tomorrow, the bottom of the tree would be full of boxes wrapped brightly colored paper.

Mom forced me to get in my crib. "Go to sleep." She said. "Tomorrow's Christmas. Santa is coming. Be good, and go to sleep."

"Good night!" I said from the crib.

"Good night." Mom answered. She turned off the bedroom light, and shut the door.

Most of the presents were from Mommy and Daddy. I could hear them making several journeys up and down from the attic. Only one or two presents came from Santa.

You could tell because the paper that the present was wrapped in, didn't match any of the other paper that the presents were wrapped in. Mom read the tags as she handed out the presents. The presents from Mom and Dad were almost always tagged accordingly. The presents from Santa just had our names on it.

I could still hear Mom's and Dad's footsteps to and from the attic, when I fell asleep. When I woke up, my bedroom light was on. I looked out from the wooden bars of my crib, and tried to stay very quiet.

On the floor in front of my crib, little men were busy building something. They wore loose fitting solid colored shirts, yellow, orange, red and light blue, and dark baggy pants. Each one wore a hat that matched the little mans shirt. The hats were cone shaped and sagged at the top.

Santa's elves! If I even made a sound, I would surely scare them away. The little men had kind looking faces. Their hands seemed slightly too big for their bodies.

They skillfully put together a large metal frame. One elf attached a large spring to each corner of the frame. Three of them lifted up a chestnut plastic horse with a cream mane, and a red trimmed black western saddle.

The elves carried the huge horse to the center of the frame. Four other elves pulled on the springs and attached them to the horse. Two other elves steadied the frame by holding on to it against the floor.

They all stood and admired the rocking horse for a moment, after they finished putting it together. One of them turned and looked at me. I quickly closed my eyes, and pretended that I was asleep.

Pretty soon I really was asleep. The morning sun light filtered through my bedroom window as I opened my eyes. I looked up at the white textured ceiling. I was afraid to look.

The rocking horse and the little men in their brightly colored hats and shirts was just a dream. I hoped it really happened, but...

I rolled over and looked out from my crib. There it was!

The rocking horse stood fully assembled. The little men were gone, but there stood my rocking horse.