I thought I'd start my membership here by sharing a story about the crazy Christmas events of 1970. It may have been 1969. It's hard to remember the exact year, but it would have been either '69 or '70. Anyway, I was just about 5 years old, and my little brother was going on 2 years old. Being his "big brother", I always reveled in the role of "protector" of my little brother. We lived on the southwest side of Chicago in an old brick two flat. There was a dark, creepy basement and a creepier, darker attic. I loved taking my brother to both the basement and the attic to explore antiques and other stuff stored there and, of course, to "protect" him from the ghosts that I always managed to convince him we saw there.
My grandmother on my mother's side and my uncle (my mother's younger brother) lived upstairs from us, on the 2nd floor.
On our 1st floor we had a stand-up Santa decoration, one of the old 3 ft. tall ones from the 60's, in the bedroom. Being all of 4 or 5 years old, I was (as you will soon discover) a bit less than knowledgeable about certain aspects of physics. I decided just before dinner that if I took the light bulb out of the Santa decoration and hid it (still plugged in and lit, mind you!
), under my little brother's pillow, then after dinner I could take my brother to the room, point out the glow under the pillow, and say "Look, there's a ghost under the pillow!" and then protect-fully take him out of the room before chasing out the ghost and making it safe. We started eating dinner when my mother noticed the smell of something burning (you can all see where this is going, I'm sure).
My parents at first thought that maybe my uncle was working on something in the basement because even though he was just a teenager at the time, he was a genius when it came to putting together go-carts and other mechanical gadgets. But no, he was upstairs with my grandmother having dinner as well. A search for the smell ensued and led to the bedroom I shared with my little brother. We followed my parents into the bedroom, but I had no clue what was about to happen.
My mother saw the cord leading under the pillow (no glow was visible...so much for my "ghost" idea
), and she had my father lift the pillow. By that time the bulb had been under the pillow for almost an hour and the bed and pillow were smoldering but because of lack of oxygen did not burst into flames. Until my father lifted the pillow, at which point it became a fireball that he quickly ran with and threw into the bath tub to extinguish before attending to the flaming mattress. The dog was barking like crazy, the house was filling with smoke, my little brother just stood there transfixed, not sure what to think or do. And where was I during all of this? Crying hysterically and yelling "where is my little brother going to sleep?". I was horrified. 
We had to open all the windows to air the place out (and it was cold that night!) and we all ended up sleeping upstairs by my grandmother. Needless to say, no one in the family ever forgot that event. Ever. Not even 40 years later. Yes, it was brought up every year. Every. Single. Christmas.
Which brings us to the second part of the story. Jump ahead 40 years. I had a light-up Frosty the Snowman (same size as the old Santa) which would stand next to the cardboard fireplace many of us had as kids (I found one in great shape for a song on Ebay years ago). No, Frosty can't be melted by a mere fireplace - he's made of magical First Snow!
Then one day I was driving down the street and passed an antique store around late November. What did I see out of the corner of my eye? The exact same 3' Santa light-up decoration I had set my brother's bed on fire with as a kid. Of course, I had to go buy it. It was the exact same style from the same time period. Now Santa stood on the other side of the fireplace across from Frosty. I called my uncle who used to live upstairs and who delighted each year in sharing his memories of the events of 1969/1970. Of course, he warned me - "Don't set the house on fire again like you did back in the old house!". Sigh. I'll never live it down.
And what happened one night? I smelled something burning. By the cardboard fireplace. Where Frosty and Santa stand. Deja vu!
Well, what happened was the light bulb for Frosty was a bit loose (there was a bit of damage in the hole where the bulb fits into his back) and it slipped free and started melting the plastic. Here we go again! At least this time there was just a little smell and no fire or smoke. Good lord. When I told my uncle we laughed so hard we almost passed out.
Needless to say, I never leave Santa lit up when I leave the house or go to bed.
Below is a picture of me and my little brother from the following year, with the light up Santa now safely placed upstairs in my grandmother's flat.
- xmas-santa1.jpg (88.57 KiB) Viewed 25713 times
