Christmas Puddy

Christmas. For some reason Christmas for me has historically been...hysterical. Well, to me anyway. The first Christmas I can really remember I was about 5. I had fallen asleep and woke up to find that all of our company had arrived downstairs. I got up and headed for the stairs. The uncarpeted stairs. Did I mention I had socks on? Droopy socks. You know when your socks are like half off your foot. We call it Grinch feet. So I got up in a big fuzzy just took a serious nap daze, and hit the first step. That would be all I remember about that particular Christmas. Droopy socks and uncarpeted steps…not good, don’t recommend it. Another memorable Christmas I was about 8. That would have made my sister 15. It was the year she got a denim “maxi skirt” and platform clogs. I remember this clearly because I threw up all over them. Well, if you talked to her you would have thought I only ruined her gifts. I actually threw up on everything. Under the tree that is. And the tree. We were just finishing opening gifts and I got up and started running towards the only bathroom we had…upstairs. I got just as far as the tree and …..Exploded. All over the tree and all over the gifts. Good times. Happy memories. In retrospect I could have gone to the kitchen which was like 2 feet away…I’ll keep that in mind next time. The Christmas I’m writing about today happened about 6 years ago. As usual my side of the family met at my brother’s to exchange gifts. The kids were their usual hyper-excited selves. There are eight kids. We...well; I try every year to get the kids to open one gift at a time, going from youngest to oldest. No one supports me on this. It gets all willy nilly, you don’t know who got what, everything’s mixed up, the kids don’t know who to thank for what, the paper is all…..I’m sorry…not really…the point…of the story….I’m ok. I’ll move on now. So the kids are done…who knows what is actually theirs…seriously a little order would…be...nice, I’m doing it again. Sorry. Forget the kids. On to the adults. So we all start exchanging gifts. My mom is a money giver. You gotta respect that. Cash, the gift that keeps on giving. My dad is a gift giver. But not a big shopper. Whatever one of us gets, we all get. This year it was the Hickory Farms smoked meats and cheeses family assortment. Not the little snack size. This was the mother of all smoked meats and cheeses family assortment. With gourmet mustards...oh yea, I know you’re jealous...don’t be hatin’ now. Just a side note. One year we got the Hickory farms smoked sausage and cheese party assortment. And we took it over to Jim’s parent’s house. I came into the kitchen and Jim’s dad was sitting at the kitchen table with the little wood carving board and complimentary snack sized knife, eating the assortment. The entire assortment. He ate an entire smoked sausage, the assorted cheeses, the gourmet mustards, and the little strawberry candies. The whole thing. I was like; did you eat that entire thing by yourself? Why, did you want some? Uh yea, no I’m good. I told him I didn’t think he was gonna feel so good when that smoked sausage and assorted cheese worked its way through, but ….good luck with all that. He thanked me for the warning and started opening the jellies of the world gift pack. Ok so back to opening gifts. My dad handed me, my sister and my sister in law identical boxes. Now one year he gave us matching snowmen aprons. Very cute. This year he gave us….ummm…well, it’s a….? I should mention that when we opened them, my dad was downstairs watching football. So when we opened them, he wasn’t there so he couldn’t tell us what they were. I will describe them. We each got a circular shaped cotton thing with what appeared to be an extremely large bow. Toaster cozy? Chair cover? Hat…with a hole in it? So we looked closer. They were all the same shape but different patterns. Maybe the patterns will give us a clue. My sister’s was brown on one side and reindeers on the other. Her bow was bright red. My sister in laws was green on one side and had holly berries on the other with a yellow bow. Very festive...getting a Christmas theme here. Till we got to mine. Red on one side with…school buses on the other side. My bow was blue. Reindeer, holly berries, school buses. See the connection? Yeah, me neither. So we start brainstorming. Or laughing, what could they be? Honestly we could not figure it out. Great idea, lets send one of the kids to the basement with one and get them to get my dad, to tell them what it is. Yes, perfect plan. So we pull my niece in. She’s six. Hey Nicole, will you take this downstairs and ask Pop what it is? Blank stare. Take this, as I’m shoving it in her hand, downstairs and show it to Pop and get him to tell you what it is. Ok. So she goes. And we’re dying. We cannot imagine what it could be. So in what seemed like an eternity later she comes back. She walks right in the room, throws the thing to her mother and says “it’s a puddy.” What’s that? A puddy. She’s saying it like pudding, with a y at the end. Puddy. She’s also saying it like it makes any sense at all. We all say at once…a Puddy? What’s a puddy? I don’t know and she starts to leave. We all scream at once, wait, wait, what exactly did he say? She rolled her eyes and sighed heavily, he said it’s a puddy. Alright let’s break it down. What did you say to him? I said “what’s this?” And what did he say? He said it’s a puddy. Can I go now? You send a six year old to do your dirty work and this is what you get. Reluctantly we let her go. We wouldn’t have but she started to cry, and my mom yelled at us. Needless to say we are crying, we are laughing so hard. We have learned neither what a puddy is nor what exactly do you do with it. It’s probably a good time to mention that my dad is really hard of hearing. Not deaf, but one of those people who you ask how they are and they look at their watch and say 4:00. After seriously, and hour of laughing over the puddies, my dad came upstairs and the mystery was solved! We were holding our puddies and my dad walks in and says “ain’t they perty” Perty!! Not puddy!!! We figured out that she must have gone down and he saw it and said ain’t that perty? My niece was satisfied with this response and relayed what she heard. Puddy. My sister finally got up the nerve to ask him what exactly they were. It turns out that my dad shoveled a lady’s walk and she makes puddies. Which are actually fancy collars. She gave him the puddies, as a thank you, to give to us. She sells them at her church. We put on our puddies, once we figured it out. They’re reversible! Twice the fashion fun! If you need a big cotton collar with school buses on it and a very very large bow. I got one. And it’s puddy.