Those early years the family spent Christmas at my mom’s parents house. The last year of Santa I was probably about five, maybe six. A brother a year older and another two years younger. My older brother was doubtful, I was undecided yet, the younger believed at this time. They’d put us to bed Christmas Eve with all the warnings about not getting up and all. Of course we’d lay awake for hours all excited listening for those sleigh bells that grandpa would use to fool us into thinking Santa was coming. Our uncle Sonny would toss stuff up onto the roof to make it sound like hooves on the slate. We’d be shit’n ourselves with excitement. Then all of a sudden there was this loud BOOM of a shotgun! Then this sliding sound coming down the slate that ended for a split second or two before the sound of wood being all broken up at ground level. Seconds later we could hear the front door burst open with Sonny yell’n, “I got him Pa, I got him! I got him!”