The Pickle That Saved Christmas

When we arrived at my in-laws house, it was announced that there was a pickle ornament hidden somewhere in the house and whoever found it would receive a cash prize.

The next morning, I heard something rattling in the vent in the bathroom and thought it might be the pickle calling out to me, but it wasn't.

On Christmas Eve, we all got into our festive jammies, and Jeremy’s dad read The Night Before Christmas while the rest of us sat in a circle and passed gifts around every time he came to a “the” in the story. When it was over, we opened the package we were holding, each a different board game. Jeremy, who has grown a holiday beard, ended up with Jenga. I got Battleship, which brought back memories of playing the game with my sister when we were young.


It also made me remember the year when I was about six or seven and desperately wanted a Fuzzy Pumper Barber Shop for Christmas. My letter to Santa was more pleading than ever that year, as the Fuzzy Pumper Barber Shop was the ultimate of toys. First you took little plastic people heads and shoved globs of Play-Doh inside of them. Next you put them onto a plastic barber chair, turned a plastic crank, and made bright Play-Doh hair grow out of their heads. Then you could use little plastic scissors to cut and coif them into a hot pink or blue do. Who wouldn’t love a toy like that? This was sooo much better than the gigantic scary Barbie head with fake makeup that a lot of my friends had for their beauty parlor play time.


Well, Santa came through that year, as he usually did, but in my excitement I think I managed to break the Fuzzy Pumper Barber Shop in about ten minutes and it sat in our hall closet for a very long time until I forgot about it.

This Christmas, I forgot about the pickle after a few days too, but in a fortunate turn of events Jeremy guessed that it was hidden inside of a globe in the dining room and won the pickle game. He also made me laugh a lot, watching him with his brothers. And Santa came through yet again, bringing me two brown paper packages tied up with string, just as I had hoped.