Relatives do Leave a Mark

By now many of you who are following my ramblings know that the outdoorsy adventuresome side of my life came because I didn't want to have grown old and not be able to say I visited Crater Lake, like my Grandma Mary.  I don't know if any of my relatives realized they were leaving a marked impression on my life as I was growing up...

...when I was a youngster of 6 or 7 years old my families finances were nip and tuck.  No as kids we never went to bed hungry or didn't have a new pair of jeans for the first day of school but mom had to be frugal with the money she had so she could make ends meat.  Christmas time was always a challenge money wise because children expect a couple presents from Santa Claus, even if the money was not there for the gifts.  Also about the age of 6 or 7 is when the older kids are trying to steal the wonder of St. Nick from you for some reason.  I have never understood why people try to rob that magical time from children.

I clearly remember my mom, my two brothers and I getting to go visit my Uncle Ed's and Aunt Dorthy's house this one Christmas Eve and we even got to stay the night.  Uncle Ed and Aunt Dorthy did not seem to have the money struggles that other people I knew had.  They lived in a big house with a huge fireplace, they had a game room.  Imagine having a room just to play games in.  I think they had 3 or 4 color television sets in their home, we still didn't own a black and white one yet.  Aunt Dorthy had Christmas decorations hung everywhere and sitting on every shelf throughout her home.  The Christmas lights hanging on the outside of their house actually blinked, that was unusual for back in those days.  Their Christmas tree had so many decorations the bows hung low from the weight of the ornaments.  There was at least a hundred lively wrapped presents under their tree too, tumbling way out onto the living room carpet.  I had never seen so many presents in one place before.

We got to stay up late that eve and watched a Christmas movie on T.V.  We enjoyed popcorn and hot chocolate before Aunt Dorthy helped us kids prepare a plate of cookies for Santa and fresh carrots for his reindeer.  We then were told we needed to settle down and go to sleep because Santa was coming to town and if we were still awake when he arrived he wouldn't be able to come down the chimney and leave any presents for us.  Trying to settle down in our sleeping bags positioned on the floor of the "game room" was difficult enough but became nearly impossible when we clearly could hear sleigh bells ringing from outside from time to time.

All of my skepticism about weather Santa Claus was real or not vanished the next morning when we awoke early that Christmas morning.  Slowly making our way to the Christmas tree in the front room, my mom warned us ahead of time that we were not allowed to run in this beautiful home.  I will never forget for as long as I live the black sooty boot prints that left the hearth of the fireplace and marched right over to the Christmas tree where more presents were left.  The contrast of those black sooty boot prints leading across Aunt Dorthy's white carpet, only crumbs remained where the cookies had been placed the night before and the carrots were obviously chewed on by reindeer.

My Uncle Ed was killed in a terrible landslide while working for the phone company not many years after that Christmas we shared with him.  I can unmistakably say that I have modeled every Christmas I have enjoyed with my own children, my neighbors children and now my grandchildren, after the Christmas Uncle Ed proved to me that there really is a Santa Claus forty five years ago.