The “House Critters” Christmas Eve

     The house critters had been waiting many days for Christmas to come. They knew that tonight and tomorrow many special activities would happen. All the humans were talking about when they would go to Barbs’ sisters’ house for Christmas Eve. From previous visits the house critters knew they were always welcome at Aunt Jackie’s, as the young human called her.

   Henrietta Bobbie Bunny, the eldest of the critters, got the rest of the house critters together for a meeting to figure out when the trip would happen. Ducky Duck, Rainy Reindeer, Blue Booby, and Big Bunny were all in the antique room, looking at decorations on a big green tree and playing with the little red wagon, which they had been told not to do. Discussing time was something the critters were not very good at. They knew the divisions of a day, which are, morning, afternoon, evening, and night. What got them was the actual time things happened. They knew the humans looked at many different items they called clocks, none of them made any sense to the critters. It seemed to them that clocks should be labeled with the divisions of the day and should have the numbers within those divisions. Clocks did not and the same numbers were used during morning and afternoon as were used during evening and night, which really confused them.

   They decided that at least one of them needed to keep an eye on Bob; he was the one who usually drove and would have to get a car out of the garage before the family could travel. This was the time the critters needed to be ready to hop in, for they were welcome to go anywhere, but nobody would wait for them. It seemed to take forever, with critter after critter taking turns watching Bob and then it happened, he went out to the garage and backed up to the house. When he went in to get stuff to take out to the car and get the other humans the critters jumped into the back seat, where Amy would also be sitting.

    The trip to Aunt Jackie’s took about ten minutes, as they only had to go from East Main Street to Sullivan Drive. Where the house was located on the lake there was a beautiful view of the east shore and to the south of open water. When they got there all of them had plenty of time to get out of the car. There were large cardboard boxes with many presents in them that the humans had to carry into the house and bowls of food wrapped in shinny stuff the critters like to roll up in balls and hit to each other around the house.

   Once inside they saw all the decorations that were up here, very different from their house. Then there was the tree, which was on a table in the corner of the living room and it was not green. This was a cottage that had been done over to be used as a year round home and there was not a lot of extra space. However, the kitchen was a great place to make cookies and the dining room table could seat eight humans. The next thing the critters found was the treats on the coffee table, which were all they expected along with Christmas cookies. The humans got drinks to go along with the treats and the critters helped themselves to the stuff they liked, none of the beer or wine went down their throats’. The humans talked a lot, which is the only thing about them that the critters would like to change.  

  An hour or so later Amy and Aunt Jackie stopped playing the game which, at last, caused all seven of them to stop yakking. They went into the kitchen and took stuff out of the ovens and refrigerator to go on the dining room table, where plates, soup bowls, glasses, and silverware had already been arranged. Everyone got called to the table and there were only seven humans so the critters got to share a seat, which made getting food much easier. Each critter got what they liked and that included rolls with butter, shrimp, oysters, soup with crackers, and of course more Christmas cookies.

   After the clean up, a few naps, and a game of LIFE the critters got really excited. A colored box was handed out to everyone and the critters got to open the first of their Christmas present!