For children, there’s nothing quite like Christmas morning — the joy and anticipation are palpable on their little faces. So parents eternally videotape the proceedings, including one father who caught the annual moment that his kids came bounding down the stairs on Christmas morn for more than two decades.

As Nick Confalone — one of those kids — explained:

Every year, our dad would tape us coming down the stairs. This is a compilation of all the videos I could find. Relatives and pets grow up and disappear, and new extended family members appear in their place.”

He added that the “new guy” alongside his sister in the later clips is her husband.

The music is from ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas,’ but it could’ve just as easily been ‘The Way We Were.’ Take a look at a quarter-century of memories below.

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