Summary:  This story was written for the 2016 Advent Collection.

Rating:  G  (2,480 words)

The Christmas Tree Surprise by BettyHT

“This year, we should have the whole tree in the house. The new house is big enough.” Little Joe Cartwright, at twelve years old, thought that it was about time that the family should start listening to some of his ideas. After his oldest brother returned from the east and college, they had expanded the ranch house raising the roof, adding bedrooms, and building a bigger kitchen. Little Joe had to admit that Adam had learned a lot at that school because the house was a lot nicer now, and each of them certainly enjoyed having their own bedrooms.

“It’s not exactly a new house. It’s a remodeled house.”

As was far too common in Little Joe’s opinion, Adam corrected his younger brother. It irritated Little Joe quite a lot when he did that, but he did enjoy having his brother back home so he was willing to put up with some minor irritations although he did let him know fairly often that he didn’t like it, and now was one of those times.

“You know, it’s not your job to tell me what to say. I can talk for myself just fine.”

“Little Joe, your brother was being helpful. There is no reason for you to be disrespectful.”

“Yes, sir.” Little Joe frowned at that because it seemed his father took Adam’s side far too often too. The next thing that Adam said though made him forget all about that previous part.

“I like Little Joe’s idea. The room would look more majestic with a full sized tree inside decorated with candles especially as you said, Pa, you wanted to invite some of our good friends here for Christmas. It would be an impressive way to show off the changes to the house.”

“Yes, I know it would be an impressive way to show off how we have changed the house, but I hate to give up all the traditions that Marie set for the house with the greens over the fireplace and around the doors and windows and the arch over dining room as well as the stairs.”

“We can still do all of that and the tree.”

“Adam, that’s an awful lot of work. Who’s going to do all of that?”

Turning his gaze to Hoss and at Little Joe with an inquisitive look, Adam knew what the answer would be before he asked, but propriety said he should ask. “Well, what do you say? Do you want to do that work?” He got the answer he expected accompanied by big grins. Their father couldn’t say deny them then.

With enthusiasm, the three set out to do that work the next day with Little Joe not even complaining about having to get up early and do chores while Adam and Hoss sharpened the tools they would need and got coils of rope ready to tie everything to the wagon. They had a good hot breakfast because Hop Sing insisted they would need one with all the outdoor work they had planned. Then as soon as chores were completed, they harnessed a team to the buckboard and headed out to get a tree and the greens they would need to do the decorating. When they got to the first grove of trees, they couldn’t agree on a tree. After an hour of disagreeing and frustrated with his younger brothers, Adam finally issued an ultimatum.

“All right, I told you how tall it has to be and that it can’t be any taller than fifteen feet or we’ll never get it in the door. Now, can you two at least agree on a tree while I go cut the greens so that we can get home before dark? If not, I’m picking the tree and you have no say.”

Faced with that choice and an angry Adam who was unlikely to back down once he got that look, Hoss and Little Joe assured him that they would be able to agree on the choice of a tree. Looking somewhat unsure of it but needing to get the work done, Adam grabbed the tools he needed and headed off to start gathering greens for decorating leaving the saw for his brothers to cut down a tree. After making several trips back to the wagon with greens and not seeing his brothers anywhere nor hearing the sound of the saw, Adam decided he better go check on their progress. He found them about to start sawing on what was actually a fine specimen of a tree.

“Joe found it, Adam. I woulda missed it entirely. It had all this brush and grass growing up around it cause it was so close to this here stream.”

“All that water is probably why it grew so well. I have to admit, you found a very pretty tree. Pa will like it a lot. Now, you need to get cutting.”

“Ya, we will. Took us awhile to clear all that grass and brush away. There were some critters living in there too. They’re all gone now so don’t you worry none about that.”

In about an hour, the two younger brothers had dragged their prize back to the wagon that was loaded with greens. With Adam’s help, the tree was loaded on top of the greenery and tied down with the top part hanging off the back of the wagon of course. Joe was worried but Adam reassured him.

“Too bad there isn’t any snow. It might get a bit dusty this way but we can rinse it off when we get back. We can lean it up against the hitching post until tomorrow morning.”

“Aw, Adam, I wanted to put it in the house tonight.”

“Joe, it’s nice and cool out even if there’s no snow. The tree will keep even better outside, and we can do all the other decorating first. That’s going to be plenty of work for the time we have left today. Tomorrow, we’ll bring the tree in, decorate it, and move furniture around for the small party Pa is planning. The house will smell like a pine forest when the guests arrive. This is going to work out fine. Don’t worry.”

Giggling then, Little Joe looked over at Hoss. “At least Hoss won’t have time to eat all the popcorn and cookies on the tree before the guests get here if we do it your way.”

“Dadburnit, Little Joe, we was having such a good time. Why’d you have to go ruin it like that? I only done that one time and it was cause dinner was so late. I ate one cookie and then another, and it didn’t seem like I had so many.”

“Hoss, I don’t think I ever saw Hop Sing so mad or you so scared. It was the funniest Christmas Eve ever. Adam, you should have been there. It was great. I don’t think there’s ever going to be a Christmas Eve as funny as that one with Hop Sing chasing Hoss around the room yelling at him in Chinese and Pa trying to get him to calm down and Hoss dodging around furniture trying to keep something between him and Hop Sing even though he’s about ten times bigger than him. It was the funniest thing you could ever see.”

“Around here, I wouldn’t be too sure. I often wonder how I ever got hooked up with you two.”

“What do you mean by that? Little Joe and me ain’t so bad.”

“No, not bad, but if something is going to go wrong, it certainly seems to happen when you two are involved. Now, let’s get home. We still have a lot of work to do.”

The three brothers worked diligently the rest of that day and late into the evening. Ben was impressed with how well they worked together and told them exactly that. The next morning, the brotherly camaraderie continued as the tree was brought in, set up, and decorated with two dozen small candles carefully placed on small tin platforms. Then in the afternoon, the brothers threaded popcorn and artfully placed those strands on the tree before spacing out the decorated gingerbread cookies that Hop Sing had made especially for that purpose. The furniture was moved to make room for their guests and lanterns were set outside for later. With a couple of hours to spare, they were ready.

The guests arrived on schedule about four and entered the house with all three brothers waiting to see their reactions. Little Joe couldn’t contain his glee at the obvious delight the ladies took in seeing the magnificent room decorated so elegantly for the holiday and the smells from the kitchen that only enhanced the atmosphere. The men nodded in appreciation and headed knowingly for Ben’s punch bowl. Adam was allowed to join them but Hoss and Little Joe were sent to the dining table to partake of the far less potent punch that was there for the ladies.

Hop Sing began serving platters of food and the guests were invited to take plates to serve themselves with the ladies going first. Ben told the ladies that they should take the seats near the fireplace on the leather chairs and on the settee, which now ringed the Christmas tree. It was warm and cozy there and the view of the tree made it quite beautiful. As Ben did that, Adam nudged Hoss in the side. Twice now in his peripheral vision he had thought he had seen something that made him quite nervous.

“Hoss, are you absolutely sure that you and Joe got all the ‘critters’ away from that tree before you cut it down and hauled it back to the wagon?”

“We sure did, Adam. Why?”

“I don’t know. It may be my imagination, but twice now, I think I’ve seen a branch move on its own. It’s making me nervous.”

“Now, Adam, ifn there was a critter in that tree, we woulda seen it or heard it. Ain’t no chipmunk or rabbit so small it could hide in a tree and we wouldna seen it.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Even though Adam agreed with Hoss, he gave a couple of nervous glances at the tree before heading to the table to get some food as most of the guests seemed to have plates already. He saw no more movement so guessed that perhaps it had been his imagination. That is, he thought that until he heard the first shriek.

“Something just crawled over my foot.” Doctor Martin’s wife was normally a fairly calm woman who dealt with any number of crises in a calm manner but something crawling over her foot while she ate her dinner was not one of those things. When she felt it again, she screamed and threw her plate before jumping up to flee. Her plate landed in Hoss’ arms and as he tried to catch it, he stumbled backwards into the sofa table that had been moved toppling that to the floor and smashing the bowl that had been sitting on it. Then Hiram Woods’ wife screamed next as she said a snake was crawling up her leg. She threw her plate and ran for the door barreling into Adam and knocking both of them to the floor with her chest pushed directly into his face. He didn’t know what to do except the panicked woman was suffocating him so he tried to move her from him and pushed up against her ample chest which made her scream even louder. Meanwhile all sorts of people were now screaming and running about the room chasing a snake that had apparently been quietly resting in the tree and had been awakened from its slumber by the warmth, the smells, and all the commotion. It looked for an escape sending its tongue out to sense fresh air but panicking those who didn’t realize that’s what it was doing. Hoss tried to tell people that it was harmless but several men pulled pistols and were going to shoot. Luckily Ben and Roy managed to get them to stop. Someone, probably one of the terrified women, opened the front door, and the snake escaped with Little Joe in hot pursuit. He came back in to report that the snake had eluded him and was now safely hiding in their woodpile. No one paid much attention to him.

Furniture was overturned. Mrs. Woods stood glaring at a red-faced Adam who was trying to explain why he had put his hands on her breasts while Doctor Martin stood by trying not to show his amusement at that whole situation. Hiram was doing his best lawyer talk trying to explain to his wife that there were extenuating circumstances. Hoss was shaking his head at the foolishness of all those adults scared to death of a garter snake that was obvious by the black color and red dots on it. Ben stood open-mouthed looking at the mess as Roy was by his side trying to be sympathetic but having the same difficulty that Paul Martin was having. The two of them were going to have a great laugh about this later. Dishes and glassware were smashed, and food had been spilled and trampled all over the room. However the tree stood magnificently over the whole mess as if it had been no part of it. It was as pure as the season.

Many hours later, after all the guests were gone and all the messes were cleaned up, the three exhausted brothers climbed the stairs. Little Joe stopped at the top and looked back down.

“Adam, I was wrong. This is the funniest Christmas Eve we ever had, and you were here for it. Isn’t that great?”

“Great! Just great! Like I said before: how did I ever get hooked up with you two? If something is going to go wrong, it certainly seems to happen when you two are involved.” Hoss started to object, but Adam raised his hand. “Don’t bother. You’re my brothers, and I love you both anyway. It’s Christmas. Let’s get some sleep and hope tomorrow goes better than this.”

“Oh, it will, Adam. I got some really good ideas for us to do tomorrow.”

Even Hoss had to groan when Little Joe said that. Adam started to laugh then and soon all three of them were laughing. Down below, Ben heard them and smiled. Shaking his head, he waited until he heard their bedroom doors close and then placed three gifts under the tree. It had been a very funny Christmas Eve, and in the future, he could anticipate his younger sons enjoying teasing Adam about where his face had been and then his hands during the crisis. Ben smiled even more broadly then in anticipation.

Link to 2016 Advent Calendar – Day 5 – The Gingerbread Man (by Sierra Girl)