| |
My childhood Christmases were spent in the small towns and farms
of the Pennsylvania Dutch region. The people who lived there were
not really uneducated they simply never progressed too rapidly
in a Cultural way. For example we never bought our turkeys
in a grocery store. We bought them live from the outlying farms.
I was lucky enough to have a great grandmother.
The next part of this story may sound somewhat gross.
My great grandmother picked up that old bird
and swung it around her head three time and wrung its limp neck.
She was the only one with the pioneer spirit left to do it.
I let out a big ole' holler and turned my head the other way,
and wondered if I had the stomach to eat it.
The men-folk, myself among them went to the mountains
to pick out the best fir trees and cut them down.
Each was ten feet tall if it was an inch. When the winds howled through the
valleys between the white-capped peaks, even the gray wolves took flight.
After we cut down the trees, bitter winds snapping at our heels like wild dogs,
we lit a warm fire and thawed ourselves out with hot strong coffee.
Then we loaded the truck and hauled the trees home.
We had not enough room in the cab for us all. Most of us rode in the back
freezing our young little butts off, but it was worth it to smell the raw,
freshly chopped wood. As we approached from a distance the glinting
steel rails in the moonlight made them appear as needles threading
the mountainside. The weeds had yellowed with many frosts, but tomorrow was
Christmas so all was OK. Our hearts were warm as we reached our small town,
unloaded the truck and scurried off to our various homes
dragging our trees behind us. Bells in the church tower were ringing out
peals of sprightly music.
The family sat down for a quick little supper, then set about to trim the tree
as we always did on Christmas eve, stringing the lights,
throwing the tinsel all about, spraying snow from a can, hanging the
multicolored Christmas balls, breaking a few along the way,
and of course singing Christmas carols as we trimmed the huge tree.
Everyone was plenty excited and presents were scattered around the tree
Big boxes, small boxes, shiny wrapping paper of all colors.
Wrapping paper with Santa Clauses, bears, reindeer, and so on.
Apprehension creeped slowly into my brother and me as it dawned on us
like the midnight sun that our names were not printed on any of the name tags
hanging from any of those boxes. What was going on here?
We had been good little boys all year long.
After a couple more hours Mommy told us that we had to go to sleep.
We protested and cried, and asked why Santa had forsaken us.
Momma, reasonable as usual allowed that Santa had probably made a mistake and would straighten it out before morning. We cried more and more. How could we possibly sleep?
But Momma would not give in and eventually we went quietly into the dark,
tears slowly trickling down our cheeks.
Needless to say, it was impossible for us to sleep. We just lay there and fidgeted, and tried over and over again to figure out what we had done wrong.
We had just about broke out into tears again, when all of a sudden
we heard such a clatter, we looked toward the fire place to see what was the matter, and we saw two dark shadows, and heard them chatter. We couldn't make out a word they
were saying, but we did hear boxes sliding across the floor. And we did see someone
who looked like Santa Clause. This was very strange indeed.
Santa crawled on his hands and knees getting closer to my bedside
as the clock began to chime the midnight hour. My brother and I were a little
scared, but how could anyone be afraid of Santa Clause? Anyway, there was something about this Santa that was mighty familiar.
It couldn't be, but it was. My heart was way up there tickling my throat.
Everyone's face broke wide open in smiles. What started out being the worst Christmas of our lives turned out to be the best. Our daddy had just returned from the war.
|
Help Us Stop Plagiarism -
Nearly all works at PnP are original. However a few people choose to plagiarize.
To check, choose a phrase from the work, then either drag and drop to the search box or copy and paste.
click on search and works at Google will be shown which match. Just to be sure, please do this before
you recommend or rate the work highly...
|
 |
|
|
|
Select a Random Work
from Stories
|
|
Welcome !
Contest Winner
