Season's Greetings!

 Thank you for reading my blog.  

Please enjoy my Christmas story for 2014.  

Season's Greetings!  

Melanie

It was about 10 years ago and Grandma was nearing 80.  She is actually my mother-in-law, but quite a bit older than my own parents, I always called her “Grandma”.   She is a loving, kind, and quiet sort who is grandma thru and thru, baking, gardening, and listening to the happenings around her. 

She was living in a lovely little senior’s apartment in small town Saskatchewan, only a few blocks from our home.  It was about two weeks before Christmas and, as it had become tradition, our night to take her for a Christmas light tour.  We would look at lights in Eatonia and drive down the highway to see some of the farmyard decorations, the snowy countryside on a winter night, and the lights in Glidden.   She loved this evening and started asking us about it early in December.    

This year it was an especially cold night of about -30C.  It was clear and frosty.  The most gorgeous sort of night that makes the colours of the Christmas lights glow with shimmer and sparkle.  Everything glimmers, including the roads, trees, the snow covered fields, frost of the fence posts, the moon and the stars. 

Brad warmed up the car as I made the hot chocolate.  I always added a “little extra” to it to make the evening merry.  This was the usual routine, but this year I may have gotten a bit carried away – or maybe Grandma got the wrong go-cup.   She was a small person and I tried to be moderate, but the mother of teen-age sons doesn’t really moderate well when it comes to food. 

When we picked her up she was bundled in her big coat and boots and Brad got her into the warm car.  She was comfy with her special hot chocolate.   “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” energetically played on the radio. 

We enjoyed our tour of homes and farms, beautiful lighted trees, Santas, reindeers, angels and stars.  It was a lovely evening.  The snow covered fields glittered with the most incredible beauty. 

We returned home to empty hot chocolate mugs and pretty Christmas memories to go to sleep with but we had a petite, festive situation. 

From the back seat she quietly said, “Do you think there was something in that hot chocolate? I can’t get out of the car.”  There might have been.   

Brad helped his mom out of the car and supported her as she giggled and walked across the frosty sidewalk up to her apartment door.  He helped her get settled onto her couch where she was quite happy to be. 

When he returned to the car he laughed as he told me, “You better not spike her hot chocolate anymore”.

Grandma got run over by a reindeer.   I think I might know why.