Funny holiday letters: Take 4

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By Times readers | Sunday, December 24, 2006 10:09 PM CST | () comments

Wet cat

My best holiday memory is one that barely had anything to do with a holiday. It happened while at Christmas dinner. We had sat down to eat about an hour before and my mother had laid out everything, the turkey, the sides and the nicest tablecloth we owned. We were sitting, eating our meal when suddenly the cat appeared on the table eating the turkey. My father immediately shoved the cat off the table, but it was not to be deterred, it simply jumped up and resumed eating off the platter. My father, shocked and angry at the cat’s blatant dismissal of his authority, picked up the cat and lobbed it through the air into the kitchen where it landed, with a large splash, into the kitchen sink filled with water in preparation for the dirty dishes.

-- Alex Groh, Bettendorf

Toppling to the ground

’Twas many a year ago, much like the usual Christmas Eve; family spirits nearly bursting with excitement, holiday songs blaring from the speakers, and our cats tearing around as if they were in the Indy 500; darting between our legs, crashing into presents, and coming dangerously close to the tree.

As we all sat together in the living room, conversing merrily to savor the moment, yet also to secretly pass the time in high hopes of Christmas morning, a brawl had been heating up between two of our three cats. Suddenly, however, they froze and began staring, eyes locked tighter than the National Treasury’s vault. SWOOSH! One cat leaped at the other, only to send him flying through the air straight toward the Christmas tree.

He crash landed right in the center and sent the tree toppling to the ground. We all rushed to grab the tree but missed it by a moment. As flustered as we were, the ridiculousness of such a situation was realized and we burst out laughing, surviving yet another wacky Christmas Eve.

-- Zachary Richard Taylor, Bettendorf

Falling asleep

Every time Christmas gets closer I always remember one funny Christmas where my whole family got together on Christmas Day for dinner and to open presents. Through out the night everything was going great. We were having fun by playing games, watching movies, talking, making snowman’s, having snowball fights, everything you can think of.

When dinner came out, everyone set down and looked at all the food and their faces just lit up, and the smell of all the food just made your mouth fill up with saliva.

After dinner we got to open the presents. After we opened them we got into a group to sing a song before we left. I was one of the people that were holding a camera to videotape them singing. After they were done I seen my aunt go up to my mother and showed her the recording that she did and my mother started to laugh. She came over and showed me the tape and I started to laugh because I was falling asleep while recording the rest of the family singing. To this day they still won’t let me videotape the family singing.

-- Wesley Alexander Harper, LeClaire

Under the tree

One year my sister wanted a cat really bad, so after some looking around I finally found my sister a cat that I thought she would have liked. I went out and got the cat from a friend of my grandma’s with my mom and brought it home. After we got it to the house I hid it for the night and then in the morning put it in a box and threw a bow on it and stuck it under the tree.

We started opening presents and time finally came around when she got to the very last box under the tree. She picked it up and gave us this funny face. She got the bow off it and took the top off and stared down into it.

She sat there for some time and we sat there waiting for a reaction but finally she looked up and tears were going down her face and she went to her room. We all sat there and thought what’s wrong and when we went over to the box what we were looking at shocked us. The cat was dead ... I forgot to cut holes in the box.

-- Sean Tompkins, LeClaire

Visit with Santa

When I was two years old I went and saw “Santa Claus the Movie” at the mall. When it was done, Santa was there asking kids what they wanted for Christmas. When I saw him he asked me what I wanted for Christmas. He really didn’t know until I wet my pants on his lap. I must have been scared when he said his loud “Ho Ho Ho.” I guess Santa got more than HE wished for.

-- Michael Jensen, North Henderson, Ill.

Scaring mom

Christmas my mom was making supper and my brother, sister, and I were outside and we found a snake. So my brother Troy has this wacky idea to put it in a butter dish so when my mom needs the butter she will open the butter dish and scream, and also be very, very mad at whoever did it, and that would be us. But before we could do it we needed a plan. A plan to get in the house with the snake. If my mom spotted us with a snake she would be really mad and say get that out of the house RIGHT NOW!!

But as long as we said it wasn’t us she would wonder who did it. So we decided to do it, my brother went inside and quickly grabbed a butter dish. He came back outside and put the butter dish very quickly over the squirming little, yet big snake and gently took the lid and put it under the bowl, then quickly flipped it over, and while me and my sister Kim distracted our mom and dad, by telling them to come watch our really cool trick, Troy went inside and carefully put the butter dish, with the snake in it, in the refrigerator.

Later in the afternoon my brother, sister and I heard a huge scream as we were sledding. Sure enough, my mom had found the snake in the butter dish. She came barging outside expecting to know who had done this horrible thing. Immediately my brother and sister pointed straight at me! One. Then I told my mom that we all did it, not just me, and still, I barely did any of the work, basically it was my brother. She believed me. (It was true though) So she was thinking and decided it was only fair if Troy and Kim did all the housework for one week!! That left them cleaning house for a week and me laughing for the weeks to come! That’s my funny, happy, scary, merry Christmas story!

-- Kelsey Bennett, Monmouth, Ill.

Real trouble

One time we went shopping for Christmas lights. We found some that looked exactly like ours that didn’t work. We bought them and went home. I was just a little baby, so when we got home and unwrapped the new lights I took them and hid them. No one knew I hid them, so they took the old lights and put them on the tree with all the ornaments too. They went to turn it on, but it didn’t work. My dad got so mad. He went back to the store and refunds the lights. When he got back he found me in the bathtub with the new Christmas lights. Then I got in trouble. Real bad.

-- Cecily Conard, Monmouth, Ill.

Watery eyes

My favorite holiday moment came when I was about 13 years old. Our whole family was at my grandparentís house along with most of our cousins. In our family, food needs to be spicier (hotter) than most peoples. Every year some of my uncles grow some red peppers and bring them to this dinner to see who can handle the most peppers on their food. This year one of my cousins was either trying to show off or just had a spell where common sense left him for a while.

The peppers that my uncles brought had got dumped into a large jar and in doing so the dust from the crushed peppers got in two of my uncles eyes. They finally get the burning dust out of their eyes they decide to see if they can trick someone else. Without hesitation my cousin said he would do it. As he walked outside everyone watched through the window as he stuck his face in and inhaled. He comes running in the house with red, burning, watering eyes. Every year after, when the whole family gets together, this scene is always mentioned and will never be forgotten in our family.

-- Zach Farrell, LeClaire, Iowa

Looked up presents

The funniest holiday moment was on Christmas Eve. We were at my grandma’s, my mom and grandma were wrapping presents. I was downstairs with my sister and cousin watching TV. When they were finished we were supposed to load it in the car so we did. When we were finished I turned the car on to warm it up. But I accidentally locked the car. My mom didn’t have an extra key on her and the car was running. So we sat at grandma’s until 1 a.m. waiting for my dad to get off work. The problem was we didn’t have cell phones then so we waited until he got home then had to call him and he brought the key. It wasn’t funny at the time but now we look back on it and laugh.

-- Ryan Donahue, Bettendorf

Gigantic box

I saved the gigantic box bearing my name for the last, excited to find out what Iíd been given. My brother — who had bought it for me — watched me with anticipation, waiting to see my reaction. Under the watchful eyes of my whole family I tore the wrapping away. I acquired scissors and slit the tape that held the cardboard box closed, all the while marveling at the size of my present. I pulled back the flaps to behold a mass of styrofoam peanuts and started to dig through them, not noticing the amused expressions on the faces of my family members. I dug more, still not finding a present. Frustrated, I dug clear to the bottom and pulled up large armfuls of peanuts, but with no luck. The big box held nothing but peanuts. My brother suppressed a laugh as I stood up and tipped the box out, spilling every last peanut on the floor, but still ... nothing. Finally, he took pity on me and pulled out a brown envelope taped to the underside of the bottom flap that held a $50 gift card to a store I liked. Who in their right mind would think to look there??

-- Lynnae Jackson, Bettendorf

Cheating

One of my funniest holiday memories is of several years ago when we were all playing a game called Cranium, which is a mix of several games all rolled into one. While we were playing the game it turns out the two stupidest people in the family are actually winning. We play on and it turns out that the two of them had been cheating the whole time. It turns out that they had been writing the answers extremely small or humming it out every once and a while. Since the game has you draw some things out or hum the lyrics to a song it had worked very well for the first part of the game, until we found out, then we all ganged up on them.

-- Chris Johnson, LeClaire

Grandma’s bread

Thanksgiving 1994 was when the trend started. My family always went down to my grandparentís house with all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. By the time my family got down, most of my other family was down there. They were all chit chatting and having a good time. When you walked in, you could immediately smell the delicious turkey. Everyone was so excited because everything smelled so good.

Our family is big on playing Crazy Eights for money so we decided to start a game before dinner. Not all of us were playing because some liked to talk and others wanted to help my grandma in the kitchen. Well, we were all playing cards and all of a sudden the smoke alarm went off. We all ran into the kitchen to see what happened. ìI walked away for two seconds to go to the bathroom and the bread got burned, my grandma said.

From then until now, we always make fun of my grandma because every year she burns the bread. She forgets about it. We can’t leave her alone anymore.

-- Colleen A. Gould, Riverdale, Iowa

Slippers, not cell phone

One Christmas morning my sister and I were opening presents when my sister knocked over a large stack of presents. We all fell silent as we heard a cell phone ring coming out of one of the boxes. We rummaged through the presents trying to figure out which one was ringing. In the process some of the presents got opened, and not even by the people they were intended for! As we searched for the source of the ringing, we figured someone had dropped their cell phone into the box by mistake. Finally my sister found the ringing box and her name was on it. Our uncle in Arizona had sent it. By then the box had stopped ringing.

As she tore off the paper, the box started ringing again! Inside was a pair of slippers, but no cell phone. Instead, there were two slippers designed to look like cell phones. On one slipper was a button that caused the slippers to ring like a cell phone. We all stared at it for a minute, and then started laughing. My sister liked the slippers but was disappointed that she didn’t get a cell phone.

-- Anna Spaete, Bettendorf

Christmas decoration fever

Every year my father gets Christmas decoration fever. The day after Thanksgiving up come the decorations. He is especially fond of Christmas lights, and decorates the outside of our house extensively. One year he decided he needed more lights, because strands on all our trees, bushes, posts, and roof-overhangs werenít enough. So he went out and bought icicle lights to put around our deck. After he put the twinkling bulbs around the length of our deck, he discovered he had more than he needed, and decided to put some inside, along the railing of our stairs.

After stringing them up, he ventured to the plug to test them; he inserted his prongs into the wall outlet, and looked up to see his lights all working. Smiling contentedly, he pulled the plug out of the wall quickly, too quickly. Suddenly all the beautiful lights he had spent time stringing up started to unravel rapidly, crashing to the ground and smashing all the bulbs. In his excitement to test the lights, he had forgotten one important thing: anchoring the lights to the wall. He never forgot again, and neither did we; each Christmas we remind him of the consequences of too much enthusiasm.

-- Kelsey Wells, Bettendorf

Turkey was salvaged

It was the night of Thanksgiving and our turkey was just getting done. We used a big roaster to cook it in. While grabbing and lifting the wires that were supporting the turkey, one of them gave way and snapped off. In a split second the turkey was falling to the floor. My father caught one of the legs as it was falling, but not being able to support the weight, it ripped off and still fell.

When the crash took place the stuffing exploded out of the turkey like a bullet from a gun, all over the wall. We hurried to pick it up, as if the 10-second rule was real, and debated whether to eat it anyway. In the end we decided to go ahead and eat it. We decided that the stuffing was best left in the garbage.

-- Michael Wiatt, Bettendorf

Snapshot

One Christmas morning, I was sitting by the Christmas tree unwrapping my gifts. I loved opening gifts, but my favorite thing of all was finding out what was inside. I was onto my next gift, which lay inside a good-sized bowed box. As I began to rip open the package, I was filling with excitement. With the shinny wrapping paper lying on the floor, the box had a picture of a model jet. I was so excited; I ripped the parts out of the box just so I could see what they would make.

I did not even bother looking at any other presents that day; I was so concentrated on building this model. Sitting on my floor with plastic parts in front of me, I began to construct this jet. My fighter plane began to take shape, but this plane was not anything without its wings. I asked my Dad to put on the wings for me and of course, with my luck the tiny plastic wings went SNAP! I ran upstairs to my room crying, until I heard a knock at the door. I opened it up and flash, my sister had taken a picture of me crying.

-- James Bray, Bettendorf

Angels in the boxing ring

One Christmas, about 18 years ago, my older sister, Erica, was about five years old and participated in the Christmas play at our church. She chose to be one of the many little singing angels whose job was to stand off to the side of the play and sing songs during scenes. Erica was so excited because she found out that she would be standing next to her best friend.

Christmas Eve was here and Erica was all dressed up in her white dress and angel wings and standing proudly at the front of the church about to start the first song. Slowly, heads look up in the congregation not to a lovely bunch of angelic girls, but to two little “angels” hitting each other with their wings over and over. Laughter started quietly then slowly grew louder and louder until the whole congregation was about in tears because of these two angels wanting to duke it out.

Even though this happened many years ago, each Christmas this story comes up. Every time it’s told laughter breaks out and brings back the great memories of Christmas plays.

-- Chelsey Deanna Thomsen, Bettendorf

Home alone

Two years ago my family decided to have Christmas at my aunt’s house in Madison, Wisconsin instead of having it at my grandparents’ house in Bettendorf like always. My grandma was in charge of phoning everyone and telling them of the plan change, and we assumed she could handle the task.

My family and I left for Wisconsin early Christmas Eve morning and we had all hoped that everyone got the memo of the change in plans. Six hours later we finally wound up at my auntís house and noticed that most of the cars were there.

That night my sister asked where our cousin Jennifer was. I went around asking to see if anyone had seen her and everyone said they hadn’t. My grandma could not remember if she had called her or not and then at that exact moment my Aunt Beth’s phone rang. It was my cousin Jennifer! My grandma had forgotten to call her and she was back at my grandparents locked out of the house! Needless to say she ended up going back home to spend Christmas by herself. She has still to this day never let my grandma hear the end of that story.

-- Brandon Robert Lee, LeClaire

Blanket kept monsters away

When I used to live in my old house down under the 280 Bridge we used to buy a very big Christmas tree because our living room had very high ceilings. Well one night when I was sleeping I kept seeing like a tails shadow on my wall in my room. Well after awhile I fell asleep because Santa Claus doesnít come unless youíre sleeping. Well all of the sudden I hear the Christmas tree come crashing down and my parents came running down from their room and were wondering what had happened.

They thought that I had done it because I always walked around with my blanket over my shoulders because I thought that is kept the monsters away. Well we found out that a cat had gotten into our house sometime during the day and was running around trying to get out when it was interested in our Christmas tree and climbed into it and tipped it over and when my dad found the cat he let it out but wasn’t too happy with it either to say the least.

-- Clay Van Fossen, Bettendorf

Chinese dinner

This year, my mom decided to have Thanksgiving at my brother’s house. My brother, Sean, lives in Maryville, Missouri, about four and a half hours from Bettendorf. So the whole family hopped in the car, and drove to Maryville. When we got there, my mom went straight to work in the kitchen. About an hour later we start to smell smoke, so I went to see where the smoke was coming from. When I got in the kitchen the oven was in flames, and so was the bird. I grabbed some water, and helped my mom put out the fire. One hour later, my whole family was sitting around the dinner table eating Chinese takeout.

-- Brandon Paddock, Bettendorf

Bad joke

It was a cold, snowy Christmas day last year. My family had all gathered around a fireplace at my Aunt Rosi’s home. We were all sprawled out on the floor with presents in front of us. We handed out our gifts, one by one. My older cousin, Justin is the funny man in the family. He decided to hand out lottery cards. One was especially lucky. My poor Aunt Rosie was the victim. She jumped, screamed, and started crying tears of joy as she scratched the lottery ticket that revealed 1,000,000 dollars! Her smile soon turned upside down when she flipped it over to see where to redeem this great present. Yo Mama’s house.

-- Lauren Wiest, Bettendorf

Marshmallow fights

My family has not necessarily done one crazy thing that I will remember but my family is funny as a whole. My grandparents have come up with different traditions for different holidays and one that I remember is having a marshmallow fight. I remember the first day we did it my whole family went into my grandparentÌs backyard and my grandparents came out with bags full of marshmallows.

We then proceeded to throw them at each other. People then began to collect them and smash three or four together and if you knew my family you would know we are very competitive and some of those marshmallows were thrown pretty hard. Now even though we are older we still have marshmallow fights because youíre never too old to have fun with your family.

-- Holly Wayland, Bettendorf

The ornament

It was the Christmas 2002. The 24th of December I went to buy a present for my mom, because I was late. Finally after five hours that I was looking for a present to give her, I found a wonderful Christmas ornament! It was red with some gold decoration on it. It was a crystal ball, really frail. When I came back home I put it under the tree with the other presents. On the 25th of December we were finally ready to open all the presents; so my parents and my sister sat near the tree. I was standing close to the tree but suddenly I fell because there were too many presents around me. I fell on my mom’s present! Suddenly I heard a strange noise, really like that, Crack. I became red and my heart started to run faster and faster. The Christmas ball was broken! I was so sorry. My mom looked at me with a worried face and in that moment I could just say, “ìMom, this is your Christmas present from me! Or it was.”

-- Ilaria Gaggioli, Bettendorf

The cats did it

My best friend Candace gave me a beta fish 2 days before Christmas. It was red and blue and really gorgeous. I kept the fish on my dresser drawer so I could keep an eye on it. My two cats tried to get to attack the fish every chance they could. When I went to my dad’s for Christmas, I put my grandma in charge of feeding and protecting my fish.

I had a really good Christmas at my dad’s. When I came home I couldn’t wait to see my fish. When I got to my room I stared at the empty tank. I went up to my grandma and asked, “Where’s my fish?” All my grandma had to say was, “I don’t know. Ask the cats.”

- Jaye Rotzinger, Bettendorf