That Time I Should’ve Gotten A Beating for Christmas…
Man, I hope my momma don’t read this one…. And if she does, thank goodness she’s in Ohio and can’t reach out and touch me with a belt. 🙂
As a kid I loved Christmas. I mean LOVED Christmas, and everything about it, from putting up the tree and decorations, to visiting family (the FOOD), to watching the required annual Rankin/Bass Christmas specials (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, and The Year Without a Santa Claus, to name a few). But there is this one Christmas in particular that came to mind for some reason this morning, so I thought I’d share it with you. I probably shouldn’t, but I am, simply for your amusement. Let me be clear, I’m going to risk a beating for your reading pleasure.
I guess I couldn’t have been older than nine or ten, give or take, and I was home alone one evening. Now this wasn’t unusual as my sister and I were both latch key kids. And since I loved Christmas so much, I found myself in a particularly Christmasy mood. I turned off the lights in the living room and plugged in the Christmas lights on the tree. It was pretty, but not pretty enough, so I decided that I would light several decorative candles as well, in order to give the living room that extra special Christmasy feel.
I went into the kitchen and looked around for some matches, but couldn’t find any, so I grabbed the next best thing: a paper towel. I twisted that paper towel into a long wick, lit it on the gas stove, and proceeded to carefully make my way back into the living room. **I didn’t have sense enough to take the candles to the stove and light them.** I’ve included a simple drawing below, so you can better visualize and understand the path I had to travel (in red).
As the paper towel began to burn faster, I started walking faster. And if you know anything about the element of fire, you know it’ll burn faster and hotter the more air it has access to. So by the time I made it to the tree, the paper towel had burned down to my hand, and I reacted by dropping it. On the carpet. Right next to the presents (see the X in the diagram above).
Now fortunately I did have sense enough to stomp the fire out, although I admit it was probably more so to save the presents than to not send our apartment up in flames, along with the other eight or so family units attached to it.
**Just a quick side note: In all seriousness, it never dawned on me how dangerous this situation could’ve been until I was grown and had my own children. And don’t go blaming my momma, she did the best she could. Although we were home alone quite a bit, we ALWAYS had grownup eyes on us anytime we were home alone (Mr. and Mrs. Harris, Miss Patty, and many others). We got beat by neighbors if we did something wrong (and again when my mom found out), we grew up in THAT type of environment (it takes a village, hear me?).**
So now I’m staring down at a black hole in the carpet, and wondering how the heck I’m going to manage to explain it to my mom without getting a beating. Wait a minute, explain to my mom about the burn hole in the carpet right before Christmas? And risk losing all of my presents? I don’t think so, I wasn’t that stupid. So what did I do instead? I repositioned the tree slightly and moved the presents over to cover the hole.
Now I thought this was a pretty clever cover-up, however, I didn’t think it through. When do you think my mom discovered the burn hole? On Christmas Day, as she was handing out presents for us to open. Dumb, dumb, dumb. She asked what happened, and my sister and I both gave her the doe-eyed ‘I don’t know’ look and shrugged our shoulders. There was a threat about taking every present back to the store unless one of us confessed, but neither of us did. Usually if she couldn’t pin something on one of us, she’d just beat both of us, but we got lucky that day and she didn’t beat either of us. I guess you can say the Christmas spirit saved us from a holiday beating. Or at least I’d like to think so. And after the tree came down, she simply moved the love seat over top of the damage so company couldn’t see it.
*I had this post cued up about two weeks ago, but unfortunately I had to go home to attend my grandmother’s funeral. In a way, I guess you can say my grandmother saved me. If I’d posted this before she passed, then I guess my mom really could’ve given me a beating while I was at home. 🙂
Rest in peace to both of my grandmothers, Sammy Lee Dawson and Virginia Lou Waderker, who both passed just days before Christmas (three years apart). Because of the timing of their passing, Christmas will never be the same for me, but I’ll always have those positive and sometimes crazy memories of the holiday from my childhood.
Merry belated Christmas,
Angela