6 Days of Christmas Memories

Every Christmas we would go to our other grandparents' house either on Christmas Eve or Christmas afternoon to visit. They lived only a couple of miles from us, and didn't go away in the winter. They raised my dad after he was orphaned at eight years old, but he didn't take their name. (It was many years before I understood they were actually blood relatives, but it is a convoluted story I won't go into here.) Their house was a huge ante-bellum style dwelling with vaulted ceilings built early in the 20th century. In fact, the plumbing was added some time later, as was the electricity. Their Christmas tree was enormous. It went right up to the ceiling in their living room, at least fifteen feet high. My aunts would decorate it with amazing precision--each icicle carefully placed until the whole tree was a shimmering cascade of tinsel. I was in awe, icicles were very tricky to put on artfully. We'd always get a gift, we often ate Christmas dinner with them. Sometimes our cousins from Salt Lake City were there, too. There was a long wooden bannister to slide down, and boxes and boxes of ancient magazines upstairs to read during boring times.

One Christmas Eve we went there to have a rather formal reading of the scripture story and gather reverently at the feet of our somewhat scary grandpa. However, one of my older sisters had perfected her imitation of Snaggle Puss, the cartoon cat, and had been going around quoting him for weeks. Remember? "Well, now, let's get out of here, EEEVUUN." So when Gandpa got to the part where the shepherds say "Let us go now, even unto Bethlehem" he read it in his sonorous voice and suddenly the four of us big girls were stifling ourselves and trying really hard not to all burst out laughing together at our mental version in Snaggle Puss' stupid cartoon voice "Let us go now EEVUUN, until Bethlehem." Our mother gave us SUCH a look---we didn't dare laugh. But none of us can read Luke 2 without remembering that horrible moment when our rather pompous grandpa would have kicked any of us right in the fanny for messing up his ceremony. We still laugh!