Christmas stories

You know how some families have those stories having to do with Christmas and Santa? I was listening to the radio the other day, and they were having readers call in. One lady said she had programmed "Santa" into her speed-dial on her cell phone, so she could show her 4 year old when he was being particularly trying.... "Mom has a direct line to Santa, young man. Look, I'm calling him now."

I started thinking about my own family history.

See, Grandpa was quite a prankster. I'm not sure what prompted this particular episode, but as with most of his really big ones, he put quite a bit of planning into it. In (approximately) 1952, the family was living in northern Idaho. Grandpa was an avid hunter, and decided to use that fact. Well in advance, he set aside deer hooves, deer blood, and started complaining about how Santa rarely brought him anything really good for Christmas.

Christmas morning, around 4 AM, he went out and industriously put down fake sleigh tracks in the snow on the roof, with deer prints, boot prints, and a copious amount of blood. Once he got back down off the roof, he sneaked back into the house, got out his shotgun, and then ran hollering through the house about intruders, out the front door, and cranked off several shots into the sky. My father, his older brother, and two older sisters all came running out to see what was going on, and when Grandpa came sauntering back in, very satisfied, at least one of them got up the nerve to actually go out and check the roof (very aware of what day it was supposed to be and who would be likely to have been sneaking around in the house). The sight on the roof was, as one can imagine, appropriately horrific.

The fun part of this story, however, is not the immediate aftermath. The fun part of this story is knowing that until the year Grandpa died, in 1998, he got in his stocking a handful of walnut shells and a largish lump of actual coal.

Every. Single. Year.

It actually got to be quite a family tradition. Every year that the grandkids were around, Grandpa would pull down his stocking and look in it last, after everybody else's presents were open. Several pairs of expectant little eyes would be looking up at him, and he'd say, with a twinkling blue eye, "Weeeell.....let's see what he got me this year." A short dramatic pause, and he'd stick his hand in, and pull out a handful of the obvious contents. "Oooooooooohh......doggone it, he got me again!!!!!" accompanied by a smattering of delighted giggling.

Good times.