Oh, Holy Night

Remembering Christmas past. Quite a few of them actually. With my brothers and sisters. Snuggled (whatever number of us there were at the time) on the floor of someone's room. We all wanted to be near one another, for a change. Talking late into the night about what might be under the tree for us. Thankfully, we were never punished by way of a lump of coal, for some our truly bad behavior.

Like ruining Dad's rubber mallet while nearly destroying a small tree, in our attempts to build a treehouse. Or attaching cleats to the bottom of a seriously beautiful walnut tree, the better to make your way up - so you could avoid Mom's eye as she called you into nap time, or chore time.

Or maybe the time my sister, S. and I dragged an old plastic bucket out behind the crumbling and cracking greenhouse, to use for a toilet. Again, avoiding unnecessary trips into the house. Still seeing the look of horror on Mom's face as she discovered that her two little girls were not only urinating, but defecating in said bucket - in full view of the back yard facing neighbors. Our plan was clearly not well thought out. Trying to avoid being swatted with a soggy roll of toilet paper as Mom ushered us into the house, yelling things like, "I cannot believe that you two would do that", or, "Just you wait, girls, you'll never be invited to the White House for dinner." White House, heck, we weren't thinking that far ahead. I have fantasies about seeing my FBI file and under the listing, "Crimes", seeing the following:

Caught pooping in a bucket in her backyard when she was 6 years of age.

Or maybe it was the time (and I'm truly sorry I wasn't home to witness this one) when your driving crazy brother, backed the family van into the garage door right before the family was to leave on vacation. I have it on good authority that my mother actually let the F-bomb fly on that one. As in, "that's it, we're not going on *!@^$#% vacation!"

Also remembering sneaking out of several windows. Most notably my small bedroom window which conveniently led out on to the woodpile. I'm sure the parents are still wondering why the woodpile had to be re-stacked so often.

Or maybe it was the time your sister decided to try her hand at graffiti, tattooing the front bathroom door with a teeny-tiny "MOM" - in permanent ink. A Sharpie to be exact. And if you know Mom, she would rather you juggled nitroglycerine than ever lay your hands on a Sharpie.

It could have been the time you and your best friend decided to try to corral some newly eye-opened kittens. Raiding the holy of holies (Mom's sewing cabinet) for elastic bands and lace. Tying the kittens to the top bar of the swing set. And then wondering why Mom came dashing out of the house at top speed, with a pair of scissors to cut the wildly dangling felines off their nooses. Screaming things about oxygen and proper measurement. You and your friend shrugging to yourselves, wondering what the fuss was about, then departing with Mom's good scissors to deadhead the cranky neighbor's begonias - which really didn't need deadheading.

Maybe it was the time the whole gang decided to kill the grass by constructing a series of scavenged-wood bridges up and down the small stream that meandered through the front yard. Dad really blew his top on that one. And us kids learned a valuable lesson in photosynthesis.

Santa really should have bypassed our home. We clearly were inventive, if not misguided children. But we sure did have great stories to talk about while laying there waiting for sleep to claim us, the night before Christmas.

"Do you remember that time Mom came screaming out of the house, that time when she looked like she was gonna kill us....?"

Maybe Santa should have just dropped of a portable toilet. Hey, it could have pulled double duty as a tree-house!