Chipmunk Christmas Story

It was an ordinary day.  For one special night during that winter of 1963, Christmas Eve; our beds were moved back upstairs and piled high with extra blankets to await the arrival of Santa during the night.  Before we went to bed that night, I remember watching the blue flames under the oil heater and worrying about how Santa would get into the house.  Luckily, still believing in magic, explanations were easy for a 6-year-old girl, even though my dad, prankster that he was, had warned me that when Santa came, he was going to pull on his beard just for fun.  Before heading upstairs that night, I remembered my mom, my sister and me enjoying our annual Christmas Eve tradition of snuggling on the couch to admire the big colorful bulbs on the tree and listening to Christmas songs on the record player - songs like Gene Autry's Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.  These were my favorites.  We would sit there until I got sleepy.  Then off to bed we went.  Sleeping soundly that night, I was unaware of the drama that had unfolded between by brother and my dad after I had gone to bed.  All I knew was that around 4:40 a.m. Christmas morning, my sister and I awoke to the strands of music floating up the stairs.  It was Alvin and the Chipmunks singing "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late).  Excited and totally unaware of the early hour, we ran downstairs to see what Santa had brought for us.  Of course, I was oblivious to my brother's sour disposition all day as I excitedly played my record over and over on my very own, Santa-delivered record player.  I kept on playing the record for many days to come, which I now know must have felt like having salt rubbed into a raw wound, as it was the record player that was the source of the Christmas Eve drama.  Apparently, when my bother learned of the record player on Christmas Eve, he demanded that the music had better not wake him up too early the next morning.  Not to be told what he could do in his own home, my dad got up extra early the next morning, put the record on, and cranked the volumn all the way up, waking the entire household.  Today, some 60 years later, as I occasionally pass the small house where we used to live, I see no remnants of the family that lived and loved there.  But, my memories remain strong and feel as real now as they did back then.  That record player is long gone, but I still have that special record from so long ago - and this wonderful funny memory of that long-ago "Chipmunk Christmas."  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.