3rd Sunday of Advent | Day 11 | Advent Calendar

Bedazzled by Teresa Karlinski

Dolores studied the bedraggled excuse for a tree. Branches drooped instead of bouncing proud and wide. What once passed for needles, the sparse boughs presented bristles and wire. The bottom limbs collapsed tired and spent, sweeping the floor like broken wings. She had not bothered decorating for years, yet Dolores dragged the box out of the garage a week before Christmas as if driven. Husband long dead and children and grandchildren scattered over the map, she had no one with whom to celebrate. A hand to her cheek, she paused, lost in forgotten memories. What had come over her? Why had she hung on to this sorry fake? What did it matter? No one would see it but her. You’re a disaster. If it wasn’t so much trouble taking you down again, I’d trash you now.

Holidays with my cousins were a lot more like cage boxing than Hallmark Christmases. I had more than forty first cousins, mostly wild animals. By the time my aunts and uncles herded them to the scene of the crime, they just opened the car doors and all Hell broke loose. Exhausted from defending themselves and the babies on the ride over, it was every man for himself. God help anybody in the way.

They’d rip through the house under the guise of needing the bathroom and a drink of water, destruction in their wake, before being cast out into the yard or to the barn if it was raining, like demons into swine.  While they passed through, they destroyed anything in their wake.  We always hid our loot, but the evil little devils usually managed to mark something for destruction, even if it was no more precious than a dish…

My brother just called to remind me of his troubles with our cousin Larry, the bane of his existence. Larry was probably the only reason I had to be glad I wasn’t a boy when I was a kid. Thanks for that, Larry. Larry was fifteen months younger than me, falling right between me and Bill in age. Back then, our families had lots of overnight visits. Poor Bill