THOUGHTS FROM CHRISTMASES PAST

The house I grew up i was a very, old place with fireplaces in every room.

When I was eight, I asked my mother if I could hang up a stocking as

I'd read about in THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.  She was talking on the

phone at the time and nodded absently, so I got out one of my

knee-high socks and went into the parlour to do so.  When she heard

the hammering, she decided she'd better check what was happening.  I'd

gotten a regular-sized nail and was driving it into the wooden mantle

of the fireplace.  It left a very large hole in the mantle and while

Mother was dismayed at the time and tried to cover it with wood-filler

and new paint, it was always there.  Later, however, I heard her

recounting the story to a friend while laughing, "...and I walked in

and she was pounding this GIGANTIC nail into the mantle...!" I decided

she wasn't TOO angry.  After that, I used thumbtacks to hold up my

stocking.  I'm not sure if that's the same time the fire in the

fireplace melted the  chocolate cherries Santa put in my stocking or

not.  The candy  made a lovely, brown puddle of goo on the hearth as

it melted and dripped through the toe of the sock.  The smell of

burned chocolate permeated the parlour for weeks.  From that

experience, I learned to remove my stocking from the mantle before

lighting the fire!