AUTHOR'S NOTE: This short story was originally written and published in 2009 and I thought the timing was appropriate to resurrect it for a new audience.
The calm stillness and clear skies uncloaked a chilly Christmas Eve. Huddled together for warmth in the RV, the children bundled themselves in their sleeping bags trying hard to fall asleep. They knew how important it was for Santa not to be discovered when he made his annual visit. But, the harder they tried, the harder it was to fall asleep.
Christmas in the RV is not what the parents had planned, but circumstances being what they were, this is where they found themselves. Dad, mom, two kids and their ever faithful four legged mutt, Buttons. To be sure, it was cramped, with less than a hundred and fifty square feet of living space.
The kids and Buttons slept up top, over the driver’s area. The kids loved it because it reminded them of the secret tree-fort that they used to visit near their home. Mom and dad slept in the main bed to the rear. When all were asleep, nobody could feel the claustrophobic conditions. It rather felt like they were camping, as they had done so many times before, visiting relatives, taking long weekends in the mountains, and spending annual vacations in places where cell phones couldn’t find them. Better times indeed.
The tranquility of the evening soothed the kids to sleep and, before long, the parents as well.
As we can well remember from our own childhood, the anticipation of receiving gifts on Christmas Day seemed to prolong the arrival of the special day. Mom and dad remember too. And this year, they anguished over not being able to lavish presents on their two darlings, nor even have a tree.
Buttons, ever vigilant squire that he is, was the first to be alerted. Strange sounds atop the RV. First he whimpered, looking for someone, anyone, to hear what he was hearing. Footsteps on the roof. But not any ordinary footsteps. These sounded like a legion of reindeer scurrying about. Could it be....?
His constant whimpering and rustling about woke the kids, who scooped Buttons from his now frantic pacing, peering upward and now barking his protective, albeit yappy, bark. He meant business like only he knew. The kids usher him inside the sleeping bags to quell the warnings from Buttons, muzzling him with their hands.
“Shhhhhhhhhhhh. That’s just Santa. We have to be quiet”, Buttons heard in a whispered directive. The scampering overhead continued, conjuring up the wild imagination of the kids, and the constant disapproval of Buttons, his whimpering now barely audible, but his eyes fixated on the movement of sound above.
Dad was awoken to the hushed alerts of Buttons, and reluctantly arose from his warm slumber to investigate the fuss. Mom was a heavy sleeper, a helpful trait to have during these challenging times. Dragging his feet toward the front of the RV, dad now understood why Buttons was unstill, for he too, could hear the pitter patter of feet on the roof.
‘Oh crap’ he thought. Just what he needed, squirrels or chipmunks making a home for themselves on or in the RV. He now realized parking so close to the huge evergreen may not have been such a wise decision, despite its obvious advantages at the time.
As suddenly as the footsteps began, they ceased. On hearing dad approach, the kids in unison exclaimed “Santa was just here daddy”.
“Shhh, you’ll wake your mother. They were just squir....”, catching himself mid-sentence. “Yes I think I heard him too. Go back to sleep for now. We can see what he left in the morning”, his hushed raspy voice decreed.
Christmas morning couldn’t come fast enough for the kids, awakening with Buttons and swooping down to the small dining table. You could have a palace and the kids will sniff out the presents in no time, but in this RV, one could pivot in a single spot and ....well, you get the idea.
There on the table sat two small gifts wrapped in last week’s comic strips from the local newspaper. Each grabbing a gift and like Olympic high jumpers, landing in bed with mom and dad, Buttons jumping up like an attention-starved athlete himself, his tail wagging vigorously. Nobody bothered to check which gift was for whom, nor was the wrapping ripped open.
Mom startled awake with all the commotion, sitting up like a shot. Dad rolled over, wakening to the veracious banter. Like a tag-team wrestling bout, the kids began swapped adventurous stories of how Santa found them at the RV, and how they heard the reindeer, and how Buttons almost scared away Santa, and how daddy just missed Santa, and how Santa makes his sled fly, and how Santa left them presents, and how many reindeer there were, and where Santa lives, and what his reindeer eat, and if there was a Mrs. Santa, and...and...and.
No comments:
Post a Comment