It wouldn't be Christmas if somebody didn't step in something.

Are sugarplums dancing in your head? I think they’ve been rocking it so hard in mine that they’ve knocked over a few vital components in there. Everybody has those holiday visions - whether sugarplums are dancing or nutcrackers and mice are involved in a ballet. That’s another article, but suffice it to say I think someone spiked Clara’s eggnog before she went to sleep.

Me? Christmas conjures for me endless strings of Christmas lights which are tangled beyond the point of return, and trips to Walmart to just replace them, picking out a real tree, and making her stand in the corner ‘til we can find her skirt - another issue I can relate to in dreams as well.

Ultimately, it’s about one thing: Getting through the holidays without stepping in something. I’m not sure this has actually ever happened, but we can always dream. In fact, Mattel probably needs to add this to the Barbie line at Christmas: Barbie’s Dream Date game, Barbie’s Dream Car, Barbie’s Dream Camper, and Barbie’s Dream Unsoiled High Heels. I’m moving to Malibu. 

It can only happen in a dream. Here’s how it goes in the awake hours. Every year we go caroling. We envision ourselves looking and sounding like Dickens characters a-wassailing down the street bringing love and cheer and tidings of comfort and Brenda Lee. We may look and sound like that, but at some point, we smell like something entirely different. 

For years, we cut across the yard from Mrs. Pat’s house to Mrs. Martha’s. Both owned a small dog with an extra large intestine. There were almost no survivors. Hence, the rule at the Browns who invited us inside: Everyone remove shoes before entering. 

It’s Christmas tradition I guess. I mean, think about the nostalgic old days and how many songs have to do with horses pulling a sleigh. I think we’re getting off lucky to pick up remnants from a small dog and not a giant Clydesdale. Oh what fun, that one-horse open sleigh. I can imagine the conversation before the ride went, “ONE horse, Gerald. We’re doing ONE horse this year. And bob that tail before we leave. We’re not getting into that again! This is over the river and through the woods, so take off your boots before it’s into the living room.”

Let’s don’t even get into what it must have been like for that person who had that true love that gave her multiples of birds for 12 days on end. My mother-in-law has one bird. ONE. And I know what it’s like in that cage. And sometimes not in the cage.

But isn’t it moments like this that make the season? Do we not find our grateful hearts swelling when we realize it’s something we can wash away? It’s but a bump in the season of frivolity and laughter, and most of the time, adds to it. We were taking warm soup on a cold winter day to the office. I apparently didn’t get the lid on well, so on the way to the car, all of it spilled in the bag and all over the rest of the lunch. I went back in the house, cleaned all of that up, packed up a brand new lunch, and twenty-five minutes and two hot dogs later was heading to the car with the plan-B lunch, a spring in my step, and a carol on my lips. But it was what my shoe got into that was the problem. Don’t give the dogs and horses all the credit. The cats can add their part to the season’s greetings as well. I went in the house to change while  Scotty hosed off the shoe. He misjudged how slick the sidewalk would be from the hosing-off and went skiing minus the skis and poles part until in the words of the jolly song, “Away he got upsot.” 

After his costume change, I remember reflecting, “If this is the worst part of our morning, we have so much to be thankful for.” He agreed heartily, saying, “Yeah, any time you have food to pour out and have more to replace it with, you’re pretty richly blessed.” There was a pause of contemplation before he added, “I’m having a hard time coming up with a blessing in the cat poop.”

I looked at the cat who was barely saving herself by being cute, and said, “You better catch a mouse today.” He stared her down and said, “You better bring home five thousand dollars.”

And so goes the holiday season around here. I’ve failed to mention that I went Christmas shopping TWICE after Pet Night with Santa at the mall to find most of the guests had been on the naughty list. 

This is so par for the course (I’d like to know who designed that course) that it blends into the memory vault, but just understand that when Elton John comes on the radio with “Step into Christmas,” it has a deeper meaning for us.

And if we ever get through an entire round of caroling with shoes unscathed by it, so will the Hallelujah Chorus.

(c) Celine Sparks, 2025