Santa’s Day Before Christmas

Twas the day before Christmas, and all through the town,
the children were crying, all their heads hanging down.

Some were sobbing and crying out loud, while others sat quiet, and silently weeping.
For they’d heard on the news that Santa was sick, and could not arise from where he lay sleeping.

No stockings were hung by the chimney at all,
for Santa had suffered a terrible fall.

With no broken bones, but a knot on his head,
poor Santa was sleeping rather like he was dead.

Now there’s no Santa, nor eight tiny reindeer, pulling St Nick in his miniature sleigh,

And no big bag of toys to give to the children on this Christmas day .

So sound was he sleeping, that no one could wake him or get him to move.
In spite of the shaking and yelling his name, Santa was having an unending snooze.

The doctors were called and they tried all their tricks,
but none of them worked, they were fearful of loosing beloved St. Nick.

As Christmas draws near the poor little elves are all highly upset,
It’s past time for leaving but Santa’s still snoring, he’s not waking up yet.

As the elves were all working to load up the sleigh, one of them stopped, and asked all the others while wiping a tear,

“Oh, what can be done and what can we do, so the children will have a good Christmas this year?”

“I do not know.” came a tearful reply.
“Without Santa’s magic, none of the reindeer will be able to fly.”

“Ho ho ho !” Came a shout from the door,
“Santa is ready for this Christmas eve chore.”

The elves were all startled, but then shouted with glee,
for this was the sight they most wanted to see.

There was old Santa in his wrinkled red suit,
and he was still pulling on one shiny black boot.

With a glance at the toys that were sill on the shelves,
he stammered and hollered at all of the elves.

“What is the hold up, what’s going on here,
some of you better go get the reindeer.”

The reindeer were brought and hitched to the sleigh,
then Santa climbed in and all heard him say…..

“Now Dasher! Now Dancer! Now Prancer and Vixen!
On Comet! On Cupid! On Donder and Blitzen!”

“Let’s get up and be gone before Mrs Clause….
finds out I’ve been drinkin the booze that she’s hid in her warm, comfy kitchen."

That Durn Cat

One mile from where the pavement ends stands the old homestead where my durn cat tale begins


 One mile from where the pavement ends stands the old homestead where my durn cat tale begins


My father was not a man who cursed or used fowl language much at all. I've seen him get his hand cut or otherwise hurt himself and about the worst thing he'd say is "Durn it" or  "Dad burn that thing!"

Thus the name for this old dirt road tale.

Dad had no use for cats. Heck, he didn't care for dogs much better, but  he didn't like cats at all, so it was a huge surprise to everybody on that old dirt road when Dad came home one day all scratched up from a little black and white kitten he was trying to hold on to. That thing was WILD ! It was scratching and hissing and making some awful noises trying to get away from him. "What on earth are you doin with that cat?" Mom asked him.

"Ahh, the durn thing was up in a grapefruit tree lookin like it was scared to come down, so I climbed up and got it." Dad said. 

"And I didn't see any other cats around so I just brought it on home with me."

"John Senters," Mom said as she started laughing. "Do you mean to stand there and tell me you let that little ol' kitten put all them scratches on you?"

"Nah," Dad said, "Not all of em, I got some of em from climbing around in that grapefruit tree tryin to catch the durn thing."

"Well, you never liked cats before, what in the world made you decide to rescue one out of a tree all of a sudden?"

"I don't know Kate, the durn thing looked kinda pitiful stranded up in the tree like that, so I just went up and got it."

"Can we keep it?" My little sister asked.

"I don't know if it'll stay around here," Dad said. "But if it does, I guess you can.

Dad put it in an old empty rabbit cage and us kids fed it milk and table scraps and petted it till it calmed down some, and after a few days we let it out to see whether it would stay around or run off....It stayed, then of course we had to come up with a name for it.

Nobody seemed to be able to think of an appropriate name till Mom said "Why not call it Grapefruit? After all your dad said he found it in a grapefruit tree."

So Grapefruit is what we called "That durn cat" from that day on.