A quieter Christmas
Our four offspring and three grandchildren will be at the elder Ostrom’s house Christmas Eve for a few hours to exchange presents, then they will go home. The next day will be a lazy relaxing time for Iris, Shannon and I. The only actual “little kid” in our family right now is great-grandson, Novio, who lives in Santa Cruz, Calif., and is not here for the holidays; however, I will not get to feeling lonely Christmas Day because I have this documented report from Christmas 1965:
My brother has four young-uns, my sister two and I have four. Put that many little crumb smashers in one big room with a pile of presents and you’ll know what kind of Christmas Eve the Ostrom tribe spent.
Saturday, Christmas Day, was more exciting chaos, but we survived until Sunday. By 2 o’clock that afternoon we’d hauled enough junk outside or burned it in the fireplace, to see across the living room from the sofa to chairs to the TV. Shannon and neighborhood buddies had gone to Mark Downey’s, and Heidi had four of her little friends in the rumpus room playing dolls. Our two youngest wildcats were upstairs quietly napping so Iris got gussied up and went to open house at Doctor Moore’s.
That’s when I settled down for some relaxation with the Baltimore Colts and Green Bay Packers. My Colts led at the half, 10 to nothing. The world was a wonderful place; but at 3:45 p.m. the Packer’s were movin’ up fast and during the timeout I ran upstairs for something and tripped on a nuclear submarine. The crash woke Wendy so I dressed her and told her to go play with her new ironing board while, “Daddy watched the football game.”
During the next timeout I raced to the kitchen and piled choice cuts of cold turkey on a platter with potato chips and a bottle of coke, but just when I started the goodies, Wendy came downstairs to report, “I woke up Clarkie so he can play wiff his new toys.” Clarkie had begun bawling as loud as any yearling I’ve ever heard but I didn’t get up and tend to him until the first Chevron commercial came on because I was busy washing ink off Wendy, who’d gotten into Heidi’s play typewriter, which she wasn’t supposed to do, especially after waking up Clark.
Because of considerable experience, I was able to keep watching the game while changing Clark’s diaper, as long as I kept him pinned down with one knee in his stomach.
Soon as I got that job done I had to run out to the rumpus room because the older girls (five to six year bracket) had gotten into a fight over “who was the daddy.” After getting that straightened out, I returned to the living room just in time to see who tied up the game for the Packers.
That’s when I remembered the lunch hastily left on the floor earlier. Looked down to see the cat disdainfully sitting on the potato chips and eating the last slice of the white meat. A thrown slipper missed the cat but knocked the Coke on the rug. Still trying to keep an eye on the TV, I ran for a towel and tripped over Clark’s new hobby horse … which had Clark on it.
Was able to clean coke off the rug with one hand, hold Clark in the other and yell at Wendy to not throw balloons in the fireplace … while missing the end of the football game.
Iris came home and was told her husband needed a break. Was walking along feeling sorta sorry for myself until I met an elderly neighbor who was spending Christmas … all by himself.
G. George Ostrom is a Kalispell resident and a national award-winning Hungry Horse News columnist.