Not even mice can ruin happy holiday memories
'Twas a year between Christmases and all through the house, creatures were stirring, especially a mouse. Or more likely mice!
Earlier this fall neighbors on our block reported trapping the little critters. Other residents have told me they've just grown accustomed to the malleable rodents that can squeeze though subtle cracks in the foundation.
Pack rat that I am, "Yikes!" was my reaction when I noticed traces of mice trespassing when we opened boxes of our Christmas ornaments last weekend.
Years ago, I began using Harry and David perishable fresh fruit packing boxes -- and more recently Harvest Bread gift boxes -- to store Christmas ornaments.
Plus, the shredded paper and spongy packaging provide a cushion for my breakable ornaments -- or at least that had been my premise until finding that scurrying mice apparently had broken and eaten some of them since last year.
For 15 years, we've safely stacked the boxes of decorations alongside our artificial tree in the unheated crawl space under our family room. (When we discovered our youngest son was allergic to pine trees 20 years ago, we traded the annual visit to the pediatrician the day after Christmas for an 8-foot Colorado blue spruce fake variety.)
What's more, about 30 years ago when I was a single adult working in New York City, my childhood friend, Margaret, presented me with a hand-sewn Santa Claus pillow.
Fabricated in different colors of red and green calico prints, the plump pillow was the impetus for a 300-piece collection that I began accumulating, along with other members of the Santa seeking set in the world. That collection was also stored in the crawl space.
A couple years ago, I stopped decorating our house with the entire collection.
While home last weekend, son Tep had a great idea to clean out the basement, go through all the Christmas decorations and give what we no longer wanted to Good Will.
When we opened a large box of Santa softies, we discovered a mouse or two had made major headway by destroying the face on that original Santa pillow by nibbling off its nose, rosy felt cheeks and the fluffy ball at the tip of his hat. Other Santas in that box suffered from random acts of stuffing munching, too.
And wouldn't you know? One of my ornaments missing a foot is a mouse in a Santa hat.
What's in a name?
On Saturday, as I readied that original Santa and others for the trash, I was swallowed up by joyful childhood memories in Muncie, Ind. I also recalled the last time I'd seen Margaret at her daughter's wedding in Atlanta about five years ago.
As we reminisced, I had reminded her about that pillow, how I'd prized it all these years and that my collection had grown thanks to her.
She said, "I've been meaning to ask you, have you ever noticed that your name begins with 'St.' and ends in 'Nick?' "
"Not until you mentioned it," I answered.
Santa is everywhere
Later Saturday, while listening to Debby Boone sing Christmas songs on stage at Pfeiffer Hall for the Naperville/North Central College Performing Arts Association, I recognized Naperville Trolley Meister Don Wehrli across the aisle.
Our family has fond memories of touring Naperville's grand illumination and commemorating the event with a "Trolley" ornament that I store with my stash of Santas.
When Boone sang "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town," I flashed back to the time in New York City when my friend Clayton Coots had introduced our young daughter to the song on his grand piano. Clayton's father, John Frederick Coots, had written the music for the Christmas classic in 1934.
Though the true reason for this wondrous season dates back more than 2,000 years, it's often the mention of symbolic Santa Claus that reminds us to believe.