The house where my siblings and I awaited Santa is, like us, showing its age.

And it and its occupants are welcoming the season in a different fashion than we did.

There are no youngsters playing in the putting green-size front yard.

Instead the lawn is dominated by a vintage auto of undetermined make, with wheels more gaudy than Cher in a red dress.

A cat doesn’t lounge on the porch. That space is occupied by what must be a set of alternate tires for said yard ride.

A lighted artificial tree is visible through the front window.

Can’t tell from the street (now paved, by the way) whether it includes icicles and popcorn garlands as the one from the Optimist lot on Bolton Avenue did soon after arrival each year.

The tiny place – one bath, three bedrooms, six people, maybe 900 square feet – needs a facelift (who doesn’t at its age?) and the roof is thinning (tell me about it).

What its occupants will be doing today is unknown, but what they won’t be doing is – no frenetic Christmas Eve visit to Sears and its sights, sounds and smells.

We realize now that annual pilgrimage was to make the last layaway payment, then sneak the treasures to the car trunk while we kids were otherwise occupied.

Next stop, a few blocks along Bolton Avenue, Western Auto, land of many things, including in-store credit accounts.

Customs change, or are modified, yet, I trust, the excitement of the season still resides in the old house, and in yours.

Merry Christmas.