A Bag of Switches

Snapshots In My Time, Of My Time.....Hauntings.

2nd Grade

I remember the christmas I was in second grade. I was attending the same elementary school my mother taught school at. She was not my teacher like she was when I was in first grade. That was a blessing. I guess my brother and I had been kind of mischievious that year. We asked Santa for all the toys and things we wanted to have. We went to sleep that christmas eve and after having great difficulty falling asleep, we finally drifted off.

We woke up the next morning, and we had to get washed up, dressed and eat breakfast before running to the christmas tree in the living room. We had so much to do that my brother and I would rush as fast as we could go get thru breakfast. My mother would not even let us peek at the tree.

Finally breakfast was over and we ran to the living room. We saw toys for both of us but in front of it all was a big red bag....a large red bag with about 10 yard sticks sticking out of it. It was a bag of switches. Santa had bought us a bag of switches because we had been bad. I looked at my brother and he looked at me. We both looked at my mother and father. They just shrugged like they did not know what it was all about.

We looked in the bag of switches first and mom said it was a warning. Santa had bought us toys and switches as a warning to be good. My mom said that he only gave one warning. The next year if we were bad we would get just a bag of coal and no toys. Needless to say, my brother and I have never forgetten that christmas and we never got a bag of coal.

Santa really does keep up with whether you have been naughty or nice.