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….