Bubba J’s Christmas Day…Finally

Those who have been reading my blog for a few years should be well aware of my friend Bubba J and his “interesting” family.  As Bubba says, “Some of my kin come up short on good decision-making skills.”

The last two years Bubba has been telling me of one particular Christmas season and the amazing events that illustrate his family’s questionable thought process.  This year we’ve made it to the holiday itself…at last.

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First, if you’re unfamiliar with my friend, Bubba J, I introduced him by sharing his journal of his caronavirus quarantine back on April 19, 2020.  Next, on December 23 of 2020 (Bubba J’s Christmas), he told the story about him and his “just out of prison” Uncle Buck and their search for the perfect Christmas tree.  To refresh your memory, the story included an old pickup truck, a brain-addled raccoon with big teeth and sharp claws, and one of the reasons Bubba now refuses to buy ammunition for any of his relatives for Christmas.

On December 24, 2021 (Bubba J’s Christmas…Continued) Bubba told us about trying to clean up the mess from the first story, why he wished the new outhouse had been used before, and how frightened he was by an early Christmas present.

If you haven’t read those yet, I really recommend you do before you go any further into this one.

I thought his story of that holiday season couldn’t get any more interesting, then I ran into him last week.

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I was passing through Poplar Bluff, Missouri and stopped by Orscheln Farm & Home to pick up some chicken feed.  As I approached the entrance, who should come out the doors but my old friend, Bubba J.  We greeted each other and I quickly offered to buy him lunch so that we could catch up on things.

Of course, like many of you, I couldn’t wait to find out how Bubba’s amazing Christmas story ends.

Well, hang onto your hats because here it comes.

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Bubba and I shared some laughs and a few sad moments as we caught up on old times and things that had happened over the past year.  When he took a bite of his burger I asked the question I’d been waiting for.

I reminded my friend, “Last time we talked you told me about the day your family set up the Christmas tree at your grandparents’ house and about the tangle of dogs and a skunk in the living room.”

He chuckled, “ah, so we’re up to Christmas Eve…”  He chewed his burger and raised an eyebrow, swallowed and took a breath.

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“Uncle Chuck got home from pulling some guy out of a ditch, so he was in his wrecker,” he began.  “He was just in time to find out that his twin brother, Uncle Buck, with a little help from me, had seriously damaged Grandpa’s old pickup, and ended up with it and old Poppin’ Johnny in the fishin’ pond out behind the house.

“He didn’t seem happy and made me and Uncle Buck go with him to pull them out of the pond.  Then we took the drowned vehicles into town to Chuck’s shop to drain the water out of their engines and start on all the stuff you have to do when land vehicles go swimming.

“Uncle Buck volunteered to go down the block to buy new spark plugs and other stuff.  He got out the door before Uncle Chuck could stop him, and I guess Chuck didn’t realize the potential problems in the situation yet…or maybe he thought Buck had been in enough trouble for one Christmas season and wouldn’t cause any more.  Or maybe he knew how much he’d matured while his brother was away in prison and figured Buck had matured too.

“He was wrong on all accounts.”

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Bubba J continued, “We did what we could to stabilize the truck and tractor and went back to Grandpa’s house.  After all, it was Christmas Eve.

“We got to my grandparents’ house to find that everybody else had gone to our house for lunch while their house was airing out from the skunk episode.  Uncle Chuck and I headed on over.  Buck said he’d stay behind and clean up, then walk over to our house.”

I nodded, knowing that Bubba’s house is only about a quarter-mile from his grandparents’.

“Well, when Uncle Buck joined us at my house, he didn’t look any cleaner and was acting a little strange…well, strange-er.  I just figured it was the excitement of being with the family for the first Christmas since his time in prison.

“Boy, did I over-estimate my uncle.”

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“Grandma had made her famous homemade eggnog and most everybody was sitting around sipping at it.  Man, is it ever good.

“Now, some people put rum or whisky in their eggnog, but, as a tee-totalling Baptist, Grandma makes hers non-alcoholic.

Bubba hesitated, then raised one eyebrow and half smirked, half smiled.

“Up until then, Uncle Buck had been hitting the coffee pretty hard, but then he stood over behind the eggnog container, sipping and refilling his cup.  After a bit he found a chair and took a seat, with a big smile on his face.

“Grandma commented that she thought this was the best batch of eggnog she’d ever tasted.

“I figured it was the Christmas spirit.

“Yeah.”

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Bubba seemed to change the subject, “That was about the third year after Uncle Chuck raised that orphaned deer.  You remember Spike, don’t you?”

I did and nodded.

“Well, Spike was a three-year-old and was no longer a spike.  With all the good food Uncle Chuck fed him he had grown into a healthy eight-pointer and spent most of his time in the woods with the other wild deer.  He’d come around the house now and then to nibble some of the hay and grain Grandpa puts out for his cattle in the winter.  Some of the other, wild deer started coming in with him…usually at night.”

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Bubba gave a smile and took his story in a different direction.

“I found out later that Uncle Buck had a good reason for drinking so much coffee.  He’d gotten restless the night before, after helping Grandpa and me string Christmas lights on his house and around the yard.  He’d walked off toward town after dark, but was in his bed the next morning so nobody questioned him about what he’d done.

“Well, it turned out he’d been visiting some of his old friends.  You know, the ones Grandma and Grandpa call, ‘the ne’er-do-wells.’  They kind of fell back into their old ways and Uncle Buck wasn’t using all his brain cells when he headed for home early in the morning, not too long before dawn.

“So, as he passed all the Christmas decorations folks had put out, he saw someone who looked familiar and struck up a conversation.  Their talk was pretty one-sided as the familiar person was actually a life-size Santa Claus decoration in a neighbor’s yard.

“Buck commented to his buddy that he was getting cold and was going home to warm up.

“Well, Santa didn’t say anything so Buck figured he was getting cold too, and it struck him that his buddy might not have a warm place to sleep…so Buck invited him home to spend the night. 

“His friend again didn’t answer and made no move to follow.

“Now, being unable to move is not a condition unknown to the ne’er-do-wells, so Buck, being the good friend that he is, pulled his buddy over his shoulder and carried him toward Grandma and Grandpa’s house.

“He took the shortcut through the woods so was soon worn out, as his friend’s right hand was sticking up, or what would have been up if he was standing.  Anyway, it kept hanging-up in branches and vines and slowing Buck’s progress.  So when he got to the barn he stopped to catch his breath and decided his buddy would be fine sleeping snuggled down in the hay.  So he put him to bed and went on into the house, where he collapsed into his own bed.

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Bubba gave a half-smile and went on, “When Buck stayed behind at Grandma’s house, he had something in mind.  As he’d slept a little the night before, his mind had cleared enough that he now remembered bringing his friend home, but not where he was…or who, for that matter

“After we left, he remembered putting his friend to bed in the hay-mow and went out to check on him.  Experience kept him from being too surprised when he discovered he’d actually brought home a neighbor’s life-size Santa Claus.  He knew he should take Santa back to the neighbor’s house, but he had another idea first.

“He carried Santa around to the front of Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  He noticed something dragging behind and realized it was a power cord.  When he plugged it in Santa’s face lit up and his cheeks glowed a rosy red.  His right hand, the one he was holding up, began to wave.  Besides that, about every other wave he would call out, ‘Ho ho ho!  Me-e-e-erry Christmas!’

“Bubba figured that the waving Santa would be a great surprise for the kids when they arrived the following day.

“He was pretty well satisfied with himself as he turned to go to our house.  At some point he stepped on Santa’s power-cord and pulled it loose in the outlet.

“Santa’s lights went out.  Buck realized the ‘Ho ho ho-ing’ might keep everybody awake, so decided he’d get up Christmas morning, before the kids all got there, and plug it back in. 

“He walked on to our house.”

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“Back at our house, the family gathering was continuing.  It was one of those rare Christmases around here when we got snow, so we kids had been playing outside.  It was awesome!  With a few inches of the precious white stuff on the ground, we took our rare opportunity to build snowmen and snow forts, which necessitated a snowball fight, which quickly developed into a snowball war.  We all got good and cold be the time we finally decided to go back inside. 

“With that amazing, loving intuition Grandmas have, she had whipped up a batch of hot cocoa, and pulled out a bag of marshmallows.  We kids were in hot cocoa heaven, and none of us drank any of the eggnog, which left more for the adults.”

Bubba looked me straight in the eye with an intense gaze and added, “That was lucky for everybody…except Grandma.”

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Bubba took a few French fries, whisked them through the ketchup, and pushed them into his mouth.  He chewed thoughtfully.

Just as I was about to burst from curiosity, he wiped his lips with a paper napkin, and started to speak, “I don’t think I had ever seen the grown-ups in my family so happy.  Some of them seemed kind of silly, the way they were giggling and laughing at even the dumbest joke one of them made.

“Up until then, the only grownup I’d ever seen acting like that had been my Uncle Buck, but, strangely, he seemed less goofy this time, although he had a huge, mischievous smile on his face.

“About that time, Grandma remembered that she’d left her Christmas stew…well, stewing, back home.  She looked over to where Grandpa had fallen asleep in the recliner by the fire, so she told everybody to stay there and she’d be back in a little bit.

“As she opened the door to step out, I noticed the darkness outside.

“’Don’t go, Grandma,’ I said.

“But she said she’d be find and went on out.

  I thought, what the heck, Grandma is pretty healthy for an old person and she’d made that walk home from our house many times, even in the dark.

“I figured she’d be OK.”

His eyes opened wide and his eyebrows went up, “I figured.”

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Bubba didn’t hesitate this time before he went on, “After about an hour, somebody wondered aloud where Grandma was.   I mean, she’d had time to get home and back but it was cold and slick outside so who knows.  Besides, maybe she’d found something else she needed to do.

“I volunteered to go check on her and nobody stopped me, so I shoved my feet in my boots and went.

“What I found on the driveway to Grandma’s house didn’t make a lot of sense to me but, since then, Grandpa and I have put together the clues and, the best we can tell, this is what happened.

“According to the tracks, Grandma had almost made it to the house when all h–l broke loose.”

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He took a deep breath as if what he was about to tell would take all the air he had.

He began, “Evidently, Spike, the deer Uncle Chuck raised, and some of his friends had come to the barn to eat some hay.  They wandered around to the front of the house, maybe curious about the lights.

“Spike may have smelled Grandma but she used to help bottle-feed him so he wouldn’t have run off.

“So about the time Grandma was nearin’ the house, one of those deer must have stepped on Santa’s power cord, which caused the jolly old elf to light up and start waving his hand.

“Just about the time he started ‘ho ho ho-ing’ the deer leapt into a stampede. 

“In the confusion, they ran into a string of Christmas lights and got tangled.  As they ran, the lights wrapped around Santa and they started dragging him through the snow and slushy mud behind them.

“In all the excitement, they had forgotten all about Grandma and ran right into her, knocking her down.  They ran right over her.  She rolled over to protect herself.  Thankfully, the fake Santa wasn’t heavy because he came right down on top of her then continued bouncing along behind the stampede.”

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He was smiling by this point in his story and kept going, “I came upon Grandma lying in the driveway.  The deer were gone by that time so I had no idea what had happened to her. 

“I bent to help Grandma up and couldn’t help noticing on her ‘axe-handle-wide’ backside what looked like a muddy face print.  It looked like…Santa Claus.

“Anyway, I helped her get up and walked her into the house, where I saw the deer tracks on her front.  I wiped them off her face as she gave me as much of the story as she had figured out.

“She said, ‘It all happened so fast!’

I tucked a quilt around her and lifted her feet to the foot rest beside the wood stove, then ran back to our house for help.

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By this time I was laughing so hard I could barely catch my breath, but I finally did and asked him, “Do you realize what had just happened to your family?”

He grinned, “Of course, just like the song.” He then took a breath and sang,

“Grandma got runned over by a reindeer,

Walkin’ home from our house, Christmas Eve.

He stopped, then spoke, “Well, she’d been drinkin’ too much eggnog, and I begged her not to go, but she stumbled out the door into the snow.

I interjected, “And it’s true that she had hoof prints on her forehead, and incriminatin’ Claus marks on her back.”

He added, “So it’s true that…

Grandma got runned over by a reindeer

Walkin’ home from our house Christmas eve

You can say there’s no such thing as Santa

But as for me and Grandpa, we believe!

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I thanked my friend for sharing more of the story and told him I couldn’t wait to hear the rest of that Christmas tale but he shook his head, “Well, Christmas morning the kids came over to see their grandparents and collect their gifts, pretty much like they do in a normal family, except that, in our family, Christmas day was the LEAST exciting part of the holiday.

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To my readers, I want to thank you all for your continued support and wish you and yours a very merry Christmas.

And one more thing, please keep an eye on Grandma, ‘cause you never know…it just could happen again.

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