Hey Look, Over in the Corner, the Box is Moving

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

A creature was stirring.

Christmas morning, 1956.

*

On Christmas Eve, Grandma Florence brought wrapped presents from Mom’s side of the family, the Thomas’s. She was widowed in 1945. Mom picked her up from her bungalow five miles away.

On Christmas Day, we took wrapped presents to Dad’s side of the family, the Gardners, who gathered at Grandma Edith and Grandpa Paul’s farm.

No Christmas cheer between the Catholic Thomas’s and Protestant Gardner’s.

Santa carefully placed unwrapped gifts in separate bundles under the tree for Paul, Peter, and Pat. A plate with cookie crumbs sat on the new stereo under the mirror.

Dad and Mom, in armchairs, enjoyed from across the room.

Amidst the discoveries, four-year-old Peter stood up, pointed, and said

Hey, look, over in the corner, the box is moving.

Sam, a Beagle pup, scratched, yelped, escaped, and showed us the way.

To young adulthood.

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