At Christmas, my grandmother was all about tradition. Each year every room in her home was draped with bows, tinsel and ivy. Mistletoe hung from doorways, and Christmas cards were taped to everything from the banister to the Baldwin organ. Some decorations had seen better days, but somehow their shabbiness and familiarity added an extra dash of sweetness to our surroundings. The house was filled with comforting scents of vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg as trays and pans of goodies emerged from the oven, including cut out sugar cookies from a 90 year old family recipe.
But one of Grandma’s delicious treats didn’t contain a single calorie, and was better than any cookie. It was the story of “Snowball’s Great Escape.”
Each Christmas Eve she would seat us in a semi-circle in front of her chair, and turn off the lamps so that her sparkling tree provided the only light in the room.
Even though most of us had heard the tale before, we giggled with anticipation as Grandma; the consummate actress cleared her throat and began to speak.
“When I was a child we lived in the little town of Butler, Indiana where my father owned a grocery store. Daddy gave us baby bunnies when I was ten and my sister Annabelle was six. Mine was named Midget and Annabelle’s was Snowball; both girls and both white. They were adorable and it was love at first sight.
On a quiet Sunday afternoon just before Christmas, Daddy was napping by the fireplace. Mother and I embroidered pillowcases, and tried to talk over Daddy’s snores.
Suddenly the back door slammed and Annabelle ran into the room screaming. Daddy bolted from his chair, nearly swallowing his tongue mid-snort, and I jabbed my finger with the sewing needle.
“OW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” I yelled.
Daddy hollered “What in THUNDER is happening??”
“WAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!! Snowball’s GONE!!” Annabelle wailed.
We ran out to the garage and saw that Midget was still in her pen. But Snowball had flown the coop and was nowhere to be found.
And the sun was going down.
Daddy said we would have to wait until morning to look for her.
Annabelle was frantic, afraid that Snowball was lost forever. I could only imagine how upset I’d be if Midget was missing.
After an early breakfast we stomped through snowdrifts, poking our heads into every possible hiding place. But there was no sign of a small white rabbit that was the same color as everything else in the yard.
A few hours later Daddy called off the search.
My little sister was devastated.
Mother announced that the best cure for a broken heart was to get busy. Thank heavens, it was Christmas week. We helped decorate the house and bake mountains of goodies. At first coaxing Annabelle to participate was like dragging a heavy wagon without wheels. But she eventually joined in the festivities.
On Christmas Eve afternoon, Mother went to the grocery store to help Dad with last minute shoppers. Since the store was just up the block, Annabelle and I were allowed to stay home alone until dinnertime.
It was overcast and snowing. Tree branches waved in the wind, and their eerie shadows danced on the walls of our room. Neither of us liked the dark but we weren’t about to run to the store like fraidy cats. I lit a lamp and we bravely played with our dolls.
Then…
“SLAP!!!!!!! Tumble, tumble, tumble…CRASH, thump, thump!
Annabelle and I nearly jumped out of our skins.
The noise came from the basement.
“It’s Santa!” Annabelle exclaimed.
“Shush!! What if it’s a burglar? We don’t want him to hear us,” I hissed. “Besides it’s too early in the day for Santa to come.”
“Maybe it’s a ghost!!” she whispered, her eyes big as saucers.
Grandma stopped speaking and looked at our earnest faces.
“What do you think? Was it a ghost?” she asked.
“YES!!!”
She smiled and continued.
“When Mother returned, we begged her to come upstairs and listen. Of course by the time she got there, the noise stopped.
As soon as she left, it began again.
The racket continued all night, echoing through our heat register. Since no one heard anything but us, everyone else slept like logs.
However we didn’t sleep a wink.
The next morning Annabelle and I were exhausted. We could barely muster the strength to open presents, which Mother and Daddy noticed right away.
“They must be coming down with something," Mother said.
When our aunts, uncles and cousins arrived, we gathered around the table for Christmas dinner.
I was about to nod off into my soup, when Mother screamed and jumped up from her chair.
Everyone was so startled that water glasses toppled, and silverware fell to the floor.
“GREAT SCOTT!!!!!!! Are you trying to send me to an early grave?” Daddy wheezed, clutching his chest.
“Oliver Clay, a large MOUSE just ran over my foot. Please get it out of here!”
As soon as they heard “mouse,” Aunt Maggie and Cousin Vera fled the room.
Grumbling, Daddy crawled under the table and caught the mouse. Guess who it really was!”
“SNOWBALL!” we’d chorus, giggling.
“That’s right” Grandma laughed.
“Although the bunny was dusty black, it was definitely Snowball. Daddy said that she must have fallen down the coal chute after the delivery man opened the door and shoveled the coal into the bin. Annabelle and I shared a bedroom two floors above the bin which was located in the basement. Do you know what THAT means?”
“Snowball was the ghost!” we said in unison.
“Right again! What a wonderful surprise. My little sister was delighted that Snowball was home and her grin stretched from ear to ear.
That night we slept like babies, VERY relieved that the ghost we feared was only a dirty little bunny.”
“THE END!” we hollered, laughing and clapping, as Grandma giggled and took an exaggerated bow.
Oh how we loved that story.
As years passed, Grandma’s Christmas Eve audience slowly dwindled as one by one we departed the nest. Her final performance was in 1978, when only two older grandchildren were present. The following year there were none.
It was the end of an era.
Later on when my husband and I began creating Christmas traditions of our own, I thought of Grandma and the precious holidays spent in her home. And I remembered “Snowball’s Great Escape,” a tale from Grandma that forged a bond between my cousins and me, at least for one night every year.
The following Christmas Eve, I pulled the story out of mothballs and introduced Snowball to a whole new generation. Though nearly 80 years had passed, Snowball’s adventures evoked laughter and enjoyment each Christmas Eve, just as they had when I was small.
For the children of our family, the story of “Snowball’s Great Escape” is a bit of a legend. But for me Snowball the bunny is a reminder of the sweetness of youth, the love of my grandmother and a long-eared gift of joy adorably wrapped in fluffy white fur.
