When Grandma Was A Little Girl - #21

Story #21 - Christmas and Curious Diana – shake and rattle!

Isn’t Christmas so much fun! All the excitement of decorations and putting up the tree and making a wish list a mile long! The anticipation of waking up early on Christmas morning to find out what kind of presents you got!

When I was a little girl Sears had a Christmas catalog that came in the mail around the first week in December. My brothers and I would pour over that book and circle all the things we wanted. Usually my list was a mile long! When you are little you get so excited about what kind of presents Santa will bring. I always wrote a letter to Santa Claus! I’m a grandmother and I still believe in Santa Claus! The closer it got to Christmas the more excited I got! My mom would start putting out just a few presents the week before Christmas. My brothers and I would wait until my parents were not looking and we would ‘shake and rattle’ the presents to try and figure out what they were! I would also sneak into my parent’s bedroom and look into their closet to see if there were any presents hiding. I was so disappointed that I could never find any! Miraculously on Christmas morning there would always be more presents under the tree! I don’t know where they hid those presents but I was always so surprised on Christmas morning!

This reminds me of when my children were little. Michelle had graduated from high school and was going to BYU-Hawaii in Laie, Hawaii. We lived 45 minutes south of Laie in Kailua, Hawaii on the island of Oahu. She invited a friend of hers to spend Christmas with us. Her name was Loretta and she was from New Zealand. Loretta was also a student at BYU. We loved her accent. It was a soft British sounding accent. We all loved Loretta. Well on Christmas Eve Loretta slept out on the couch in the living room where we had our Christmas tree. We never put any presents out under the tree until after midnight on Christmas Eve. As the kids got older we allowed them to put their gifts under the tree that was for their siblings. Our gifts never went out until ‘after’ midnight.

You may think this sounds awful, but I gave each of the kids a small teaspoon of Dimetapp before they went to bed. I know what you are thinking: Grandma gave sleepy medicine to her kids! That’s right, I did! They also were not allowed to get out of bed until 6:00a.m. on Christmas morning! Anyway, Loretta was sleeping on the couch. She and I planned to ‘booby trap’ the hallway and the kids’ bedroom door. The younger kids wanted to be together and they all slept in the same bedroom. They all wanted to get up early and go see what Santa brought! Loretta and I put colored cellophane plastic over the kids’ bedroom door. We taped it to the sides of the door frame. There was about a 6-inch gap at the bottom so we taped small bells at the bottom. We did this just in case the kids tried to sneak under the plastic! We would be able to hear the ‘bells jingle!’ Then we turned the plastic carpet runner upside down that ran the length of the hallway. The wrong side had thick plastic poky points. These poky points are what held the carpet runner down onto the carpet so it would stay in place. The carpet runners helped to protect the carpet and kept it cleaner and helped keep the carpet from wearing out.

I always kept our bedroom door slightly ajar, not closed tight, so I could see and hear what my kids were up to! Sure enough about 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning I could hear whispers from their bedroom door. Our bedroom was next to theirs. I could hear their door open and then one of the kids said, “There’s something over the door, we can’t get out.” Then they figured out at the bottom there were bells. They cut the bells off. They sent one of the kids under the plastic. Then we heard, “Ouch!” They stepped on the plastic pokies! Grandpa and I were giggling softly to ourselves. We full well knew what the kids were up to! They snuck down the hall and peeked into the living room at the tree where there were piles of presents! They would ooohhh and aaahhh! Loretta asked, "What are you kids doing up?” They told her that they just wanted to peek. After a few minutes, they all went back to bed. One hour later they were up and we all enjoyed Christmas morning!

I’m sure if you ask Julie to tell the story, she tells it beautifully! Ask her to tell you the story sometime!