With Christmas approaching, I asked some of our TODAY personalities for their favorite holiday memories and traditions.
Here's the third entry in the series, from Al Roker:
Al: I think it was in fifth grade, the big deal was, you graduated to adulthood when you got to stay up and got to go to Midnight Mass. And then open your presents after Midnight Mass, with all the adults. Because the kids -- "babies" -- waited until the morning for Santa to deliver.
The adult gifts were already under the tree. So it was fifth grade or sixth grade, and it was like, "Yes! I'm going to Midnight Mass! But if we're up, when will Santa come?"
So that was a big deal. I remember that vividly, that Midnight Mass. The long service, the incense, the songs, the dozing off during the homily. It was late. St. Catherine of Siena was a long Mass -- the choir, the songs -- it went a long time.
Got home around 2 a.m., and people came over. My mother had a ham going, food. I kept thinking, "How come I never heard any of this?"
DF: You must have been a heavy sleeper.
Al: Yeah, I mean, did she put something in the egg nog? There was a party going on, and I'm thinking, "How did I miss this?"
We don't do that now. We get up in the morning, open the presents and then go to church. I'm just too old. Plus now, when Santa drops off the presents that have to be assembled...here's my thing, and I'm begging. It's a lovely company, and it's great. But any parents whose child gets a K'Nex gift -- either the Tyrannosaur or the Roller Coaster -- you find that person and you beat the crap out of them.
It's a lovely gift and it's wonderful, but you are going to spend the next 12 hours putting this thing together. And at about three hours, your child loses interest, and your child wanders away.
And now you, because you're going to finish this thing, you're going to build it.
DF: You become like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Al: Close Encounters, right. You're throwing things out the window. Your family leaves you, but you are going to finish this K'Nex Roller Coaster...even if it kills you. And it just might.