photo #1693536

Yes, this time of year brings back many childhood memories. My now deceased older brother Kurt and I really got into anything/everything we could find. It all started when we'd find unwrapped presents hidden throughout the house. Then, my parents learned the trick of wrapping them before they hid 'em. Well, didn't take long to figure out how to take a peek and rewrap. Then came THAT Christmas, when my Dad said he'd been notified about our behaviour by Santa and he wouldn't be coming. Yeah, right. We kept that house inspected better than the Marine white glove inspection ! Nothing ! We went into a funk ! When we went to bed Christmas Eve, as usual, there was nothing in the house. No tree, no presents, no decorations anywhere. We left out the milk and cookies anyway, but went to bed convinced it wasn't going to happen this year. We woke up to the usual gigantic tree, presents under it, and the decorations everywhere. As usual, they'd stayed up all night and done their magic. It took us most of that next year to figure out what they did. They'd left our presents at a neighbor's house ! THIS WAS WAR ! We gathered our fellow scamps and scallywags and came up with the ultimate plan. All the way up until we went to bed on Christmas Eve, the entire neighborhood inspected every house around for any hints. Even our Jewish friend was in on it ! Yes, we had to help him on Hanukkah in return, but that was easy. Nothing. Anywhere. No spare trees, nothing. Even the big box of decorations kept stored in the attic was gone! Absolutely convinced we'd done it THIS time, we went to bed hopeless. Guess what happened? Full tree, decorations, eaten cookies and empty glass of milk ! Parked in front of the tree were two brand new shiny Schwinn ten-speed bicycles, a black one for my brother and a red one for me ! Needless to say, we were flabbergasted and clueless, and stayed that way until after the holidays. Sometime that spring/summer, we got "the talk". Yes, my brother enjoyed an extra three years of the tradition than I did. We hadn't seen anything because Dad had kept everything at the barber shop in town we went to. He and "the guys" had prewrapped everything, mounted the tree in the stand, and put all the lights on it in advance. They'd unboxed the bicycles and assembled them in the back room there after closing time. Then, they loaded everything in trucks and snuck it into our house. Turns out, my father had been told of our plan in advance by a neighbor. Not to be outsmarted by us, he devised that plan. It worked perfectly with one flaw. Seems he spent way too much time at the barber shop than it should've taken, and in the process of helping other guys pull off the same ruse, he consumed more beer than my mother thought he should. Knowing that wasn't going to happen again, he fessed up and told us all about it. Yes, it was a letdown, but we never heard the background of beer consumption until many years later. That was accompanied by the cotton balls in "Santa's " cheeks played unceremoniously by uncle Paul when he passed out from the scotch retained in the cotton balls in his cheeks. Yeah, good stuff. Great memories. Yes, I'm the last survivor of my immediate family, but the memories this time of year last forever. I've even told my son SOME of them, but not all. Yes, we kept the tradition going with him, but there's "updates" on how things happened. We MIGHT tell him, we might not. He's only 28 now, there's still time. Maybe. Who knows...... Meanwhile, remember the good times and loved ones who can't be here anymore, and remember the LAST thing they'd want is to be remembered with sadness. Let's not let them down !