When I was growing up -- I don't know, maybe it is an American convention of sorts -- but my method of waking someone up was:
I would go into their room and declare -
"Rise and shine! It's a bright, new day!"
Or, something to that effect. As if stating that it is a sunny morning will somehow soften the blow of the person going into cardiac arrest from the booming shock of my announcement.
I'm not sure about this, but I don't think it is only me that did this. Other people, while I was growing up, did the same thing to me.
If you doubt what I say, then let's contrast it with what I encountered, years later, with my wife and my daughter, Mari -- how they would wake each other up, and later, me -- and see if this represents something kind of out of the ordinary, or no.
So, instead of walking into the still, dark room, and throwing open the curtains to the blinding sunlight with a theatrical "whissssh", they would come into the room silently. Then, they would approach the sleeping person, and gently, very gently stroke their head, their forehead, or their arm, for example. After a few moments, the person would awake, but very slowly, not suddenly.
The first time it happens, if you are the lucky recipient of this treatment, it is something not easily forgotten. Or given up.
If one is favored enough to procure such treatment as a matter of course, over time, then it is not long before anyone who enters your room and wakes you up with a megaphone-esque "UP AND AT 'EM!", is quickly knocked down a couple of notches in your judgment, to the point just above Peking Man on the evolutionary timeline, if you will.
Gabriel takes a nap every afternoon, and Maxime wakes him up from time to time. Today I went up too, with Maxime, and as he was about to wake Gabriel, I thought to "take down" this way the brothers have of waking each other up.
