My most memorable Christmas goes back to the early 1960s when eight or nine years old. On a cold Christmas Eve my friend Paul and I were in the back lot that belonged to my grandfather, Mr. Rupert. It separated Johnson Subdivision where Paul lived and my Eureka Street home.

Experimenting with a holiday supply of firecrackers, Paul and I soon learned we could start a small grass fire, throw in a firecracker and watch as the explosion magically extinguish the burning grass.

Soon we were letting the fire get bigger and putting in extra firecrackers getting more bangs for a larger fire.

Momma and Mr. Rupert always worried about us and fire. Several years earlier, our older cousin and next door neighbor, Danny Ferguson, had a clubhouse near where Paul and I were shooting the firecrackers. Danny and his fellow club members had somehow started a fire that burned down the clubhouse, destroyed nearby trees in the then-wooded lot, leveled a toolshed and another structure nearby.

Long after the smoke cleared and the firemen had gone home, a coolness remained between the neighbor/relatives who occupied the houses on Eureka Street. Soon after that fire,  Mr. Rupert had the lot bulldozed and cleared to keep the rest of us out of trouble with fire.

The next grass fire Paul and I lit that Christmas Eve was like those before until we threw in a handful of Black Cat firecrackers to extinguish it. This time it was different. Rather than extinguish, it spread the fire. In a matter of seconds the fire jumped to tall sage grass nearby. Paul and I tried to stamp it out with our feet but soon realized it was bigger than both of us.

I ran to the house and told Momma what was going on. She immediately got grumbling Brother John from his sick bed to help extinguish the flames. But it was too late. Even older brother couldn’t fix it.

Momma then decided to call the Batesville Volunteer Fire Department. She asked them not to blow the siren. It was just a small grass fire anyway — no big deal she pleaded.

The fire truck arrived, red lights flashing and siren wailing.

Sitting in the driver’s seat and blowing the siren was none other than volunteer fireman Danny Ferguson, the cousin rebuked years earlier for the clubhouse fire.

With the flashing red lights and sirens came a crowd that soon gathered to watch volunteer firefighters quickly extinguished the blaze. Among the onlookers were Paul’s stoic grandmother who shared duties of watching after him while his mother was at work.

Momma said something to her like, “I don’t know what Ru and Paul were thinking–shooting fire crackers in this dry grass.”

“It couldn’t have been Paul,” his grandmother answered before stating matter-of-factly, “Bub (Paul) isn’t allowed to play with fireworks.”

As the excitement waned, I was overcome with an increasing sense of impending doom. Momma was mad and Santa had easy access to an ample supply of switches and ashes from the scorched area around me.

“Do switches and ashes come wrapped,” I wondered?

Momma told me to take a hot bath and wash away the soot and smokey smell. She was waiting when I got out of the tub with a switch. My backside wasn’t black and blue when she got through, but it was streaked with red lines where hot bath water had “softened” me up for the privet hedge thrashing. That switch had not come wrapped!

She later reminded me that I literally asked for the whipping.

“Go ahead and whip me. I know I done wrong,” she says, I said.

I do remember that it was about three thirty in the afternoon when I got into my bed, clean but sore tailed, and I do remember praying (probably to Santa Claus) for forgiveness.

I must have been forgiven by all because the next day there were presents under the tree with my name on them.

Santa did come and I had been forgiven. It was many years later before I realized just what all I had been forgiven for. Isn’t that how this whole Christmas thing got started anyway?

Merry Christmas.

(Publisher’s note: Although Managing Editor Rupert Howell’s account of his most memorable Christmas gets better each year, he is not making it up.)