I posted this to Facebook last year, but it seemed worth putting out again. Dad has been gone for five years now, and Uncle Micky is in a VA home, and not doing too well. I plan to see him when we are back visiting at Christmas time this year.

When my sisters and I were growing up, Saturday mornings were great. We would be sitting around the table and various aunts and uncles would stop by for a cup of coffee. They all were great story tellers and would regale us with tales from their youth, or the war (always the funny war stories), or the early days in Ottawa.

The Hall’s (my dad’s family) grew up very poor in Southern Illinois and had a very rough life. Uncle Dave, Aunt Ellen, Aunt Jenny, Aunt Tilly and Uncle George were all older (from a couple of years, to being adults when Dad was a kid). Many of the stories they told us later in life were about Dad and Uncle Micky. In these stories, Dad was always in 4th Grade, and Uncle Mick was in 2nd – they had many adventures together, and there was always some hilarity involved. 

In any case, one year during the depression, it was Christmas time, and Christmas was going to be meager. Grandpa didn’t have any work, and Grandma was doing odd-jobs for people to bring in a bit of money. Dad and Uncle Mick both still believed in Santa Claus at this point. They lived in a “shack” with just a few rooms, and those rooms didn’t provide much privacy. On Christmas Eve, Dad and Uncle Mick finally went to bed, and to sleep, hoping that Santa Claus would bring something that night. A few hours later, they woke up and heard noises coming from the main room (front room) of the house. They both raced over to a hole in a board in the wall that looked into the main room, and they were pushing and shoving each other to be the one that could look through the knot-hole and see what, if anything, Santa was bringing them.

Dad won out and was looking through the hole – Uncle Mick was behind him yelling out – “Is it Santa Claus? Is it Santa? What’s he look like? What’s he look like?!!” 
Dad’s answer back: “He looks a lot like ma”….

….and that’s how they found out there was no Santa Claus, or at least none other than their own mother, who did everything she could to try and make their lives better….

The Christmas Morning That Almost Wasn’t…

Growing up, Christmas at our home was always great. It may not quite have been the same as in the movie, A Christmas Story, but it was close (except I never received a Red Ryder BB gun). My sisters and I would start waking up early and want to get up. Mom and dad made us stay in bed, so we’d end up saying we had to go to the bathroom. Then we could walk by the entry to the front room and see all the presents under the tree.

Finally, we could get up and we would rip open the packages and presents, doing so in some kind of speed record. Then came breakfast, and then later the big meal. When we were little, it was always a trip to grandma’s house where we’d meet up with all of the cousins and compare our gifts. Later, dinners moved to our house and got bigger and bigger. I think one year we must have had 25 people at the dinner. Now there is no way our house could hold 25 people sitting down and eating, and yet at Christmas, it magically did.

This story involves my two sisters, and a different Christmas experience. In fact, it was the Christmas morning that almost wasn’t.

The three of us kids were a bit older at this point. I was in 7th Grade, Roberta, 5th, and Tanya, 3rd. We didn’t believe in Santa Claus any longer (Tanya may have been on the fence), but we sure believed in the magic of Christmas….and we started understanding that if there were presents on Christmas morning, there MUST BE presents hidden around the house ahead of Christmas. There was always some surreptitious “searching”, and occasionally, one of us would find something hidden in a closet, or under a bed.

Then, my sisters hit the motherload. One of them found A LOT of their presents in a chest, out in the garage. One sister grabbed the other and they looked at the presents – dolls, games, clothes, and ‘gasp!’ – a Barbie Doll Case. They looked and touched and finally, shut the lid to the chest. If that’s where they left it, all would have been fine.

Later, they decided they wanted to look at the presents one more time. So after mom drove to work (and gave me a ride to Junior High), they went out to the garage, and there was a 50 pound bag of salt on top of the chest. Being resourceful, they carefully took the bag off, and looked at the presents once more. Then they put the bag back on the chest. Of course, there’s always a price to pay. One of the girls (who will go unnamed) wanted to see that Barbie Doll Case once more, and this time, when taking the bag back off the chest, it burst open spilling everywhere. They tried to clean it up, but couldn’t get the busted bag back on the chest. Finally, they enlisted the aid of our neighbor, Mr. Classon, who cleaned up the mess, put the sand in the bag and the bag in a bucket. He then put the bucket on the chest. Mr. Classon thought the whole thing was pretty funny – “Oh, your parents will laugh about this.” The girls knew that wasn’t the case, and walked to school, where they spent the day knowing their world was about to end….

That evening, all was well for a bit, and then mom saw the busted bag and knew what had happened. To say she was furious is putting it mildly. This was back in the day when spankings happened, or at least they did at our house. As my sister Roberta said “She was so mad. When she went to get the belt, I held my breath hoping I would die before she got back“.

Well, Roberta didn’t die, and they both survived their spankings. Mom swore there wouldn’t be any presents for them that year, because Santa (and evidently mom and dad) didn’t bring presents to bad children. They also didn’t get to eat dinner with the family for a week.

Finally, Christmas morning came and we all went out to the tree. My presents were there, and some of the girls’ presents were there, but they didn’t receive many. Things were pretty glum all around. I mean, I couldn’t even enjoy my presents because it looked like I was gloating. Finally, Dad asked one of the girls to get something out in the family room. She went out there, and all of a sudden there was a shriek. We all ran to the family room and there, beneath a brand new, smaller Christmas tree were all of Roberta and Tanya’s presents, including many from the chest and several new ones. The Barbie Doll Case was among them.

It turned out to be a great Christmas and also gave us a story that we have told and laughed at throughout the years. Mom didn’t laugh at it much early on, but she does now, and the spittle from earlier years has dried. Still, if you ever want to get a rise out of mom, I guarantee this story gets at least a mild harrumph and a comment or two. Oh, and one other twist to the story. Tanya was the one who wanted to see the Barbie Case one more time. It turned out to be a present for Roberta, and she still has it to this day.

Merry Christmas everybody. May your Christmas gives you a story or two that can be passed on to the next generation as well.