My two older brothers have been whispering in their double bed for the last hour. They’ve decided it’s time. Brother Jim will go first. He gets out of bed and turns on the flashlight. The light is blinding, but Jim quickly covers the flashlight with his fingers. He only needs enough light to find his way downstairs.
I’m in first grade in Channahon, Ill., 1962, and for as long as I can remember, my two older brothers have been sneaking downstairs on Christmas Eve. Downstairs are nine stockings, each with a sibling’s name, and nine neat piles of unwrapped gifts. Jim will go first, then report what he sees. For example, “I saw an Easy-Bake oven, a Spirograph, a Super Ball.…” Then my oldest brother, Bob, will take his turn. Mike and I are too young and would rather not sneak around in the dark. But all four of us are wide awake and caught up in the excitement.
I watch Jim move slowly down the hallway. He must be super-quiet so he doesn’t wake Mom and Dad. Every child instinctively understands that to be super-quiet you must move in super-slow motion. Personally, I’m less concerned about waking Mom and Dad and more concerned about Santa. But my older brothers assure me that Santa has already come and gone. Sometimes, I think my older brothers don’t give my concerns serious consideration.
Jim has turned the corner and is heading down the stairs. He’s out of sight now. My breathing is very shallow as I try to be as quiet as possible while listening for Jim downstairs.
Crash! The silence is broken by a loud and frightening noise that seems to last forever. Like a bad car crash. Jim is running back into the boys’ room. He throws the flashlight under the bed and slips under his covers. There is no doubt that everybody in the house is awake. Perhaps everybody on our street.
We wait for the inevitable. The downstairs light will come on, followed by some downstairs discussion. Then Dad will come upstairs, turn on the boy’s room light, and start asking questions. Dad seems to know whether he should question the girls or the boys. But most often he questions the boys, which seems totally unfair. All four of us are pretending to be asleep. What could be more innocent than all four of us sleeping through the entire incident?
But here is where the story turns odd. There is no downstairs light or discussion. The house is quiet again. Eventually, Jim and Bob, the two oldest, gain enough courage to whisper. Bob is asking Jim what he did and complaining that Jim is going to get us all in trouble. Jim is saying he doesn’t know what happened, he didn’t even get to the living room, it’s not his fault. Eventually we all fall asleep, for real.
On Christmas morning, all four boys head downstairs at dawn (safety in numbers). It’s time to examine the crash site. But there is nothing to see. All the furniture is upright. No broken windows. Everything on the bookshelves is in its proper place. When the girls ask about the noise, Mom says she didn’t hear anything and maybe it was Santa. The boys aren’t offering any information nor asking any questions. After all, we slept through the entire incident.
Christmas proceeds as expected. We don’t understand it but somehow we’ve avoided punishment. But it was the last time we dared to sneak around the house in the middle of the night.
Years later, when I was in high school, our mom filled in the missing details of the story. Dad had strung fishing line across the bottom of the stairs. One end was fixed to the wall, the other end tied to his trap. He spent about 10 minutes stacking up pie tins, plastic cups, utensils, cookie sheets — anything light that made a loud noise when dropped. The stack was about 2 feet tall, carefully balanced on the edge of the coffee table, and eager to fall onto the old hardwood floor. After Jim had sprung the trap, Dad got up and removed the evidence.
My dad liked jokes, even if we were too young to understand the punch line. He knew we’d eventually figure them out.
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