This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Based on my experience, Christmas is the most magical day of the year — for kids and grandparents. It's not quite so magical for parents.

Back when I was standing around watching my wife raise our kids, the season was fraught with worry. I wrestled with concerns about money, having to work Christmas Day or the inevitable breaking of toys that I was required to either fix or replace.

I spent one Christmas Eve in a cold unfinished basement putting together a Big Wheel while simultaneously running a 103-degree temperature from the flu. My wife says it was worth it. I have to take her word for it because I was dying at the time.

As a kid, I knew there were only a few ways the Christmas magic could be ruined. First was not getting what I wanted, either because I had been bad, or Santa got shot down by the $&#*@ Russians.

Other potential ruinations of Xmas might be having my favorite toy impounded (like the Christmas I shot my little brother in the head with a new cork gun), being forced to eat broccoli, or a surprise visit from a loony aunt who reeked of Avon products and always gave me knitted mittens.

But there was one thing that totally wrecked Christmas. It didn't happen often, but when it did it sucked all the joy out of the day.

Every once in a while, Christmas would fall on a Sunday. Like this year.

My family was big on church. So much so that it didn't matter if Christmas was on Sunday. We went to church. The Old Man would have made us get dressed and go even if the place was on fire.

Sunday Christmas came in two distinct categories, both of which sucked. There was opening presents before church, and doing it after church.

Personally, the worst kind of Sunday Christmas was having to wait until AFTER church to see what Santa brought us. We'd trudge out to the car, past a tree barely visible with all the loot piled up. It was like forcing a pirate to walk past a wrecked galleon.

During church I would curse the fates that caused Christmas to occur on a Sunday. What kind of government did we have that would allow such a thing? We already worshiped every Sunday. Couldn't there be a federal church holiday or something?

Sitting in sacrament meeting, I fumed about the unfairness of it all. Mom and the Old Man wanted me to believe that the entire reason for Christmas was to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Shouldn't we remember him first?

I may have only been 7, but I knew that was messed up. Jesus was the boss of the universe. He already had all the presents he would ever get. Meanwhile, a kid of no real importance had to wait two whole hours to find out if he got the spear gun he had been asking Santa for.

Opening gifts before church was almost as cruel. You got to play with them for a couple of hours, and then leave them for some boring meeting that had nothing to do with a new train set.

I realize now that I had to put up with all of that in order to have Christmas with grandkids. It's the best kind. All nine of them will show up here and drag me out of bed to see what my wife and I bought them.

Will we make them go to church? Hell, no. There's nine of them. The last thing I want is to get hurt for Christmas.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.