Weird dynamic for this story, but let’s roll on. This story took place on Christmas Eve one night in the mid 1990s. I was a kid – couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old. But, so young that I thought, “these things are only supposed to happen around Halloween.”
For years, my mom and dad hosted my dad’s side of the family out at the house for Christmas Eve. We’d have a big dinner, open presents, and then all my cousins and I would sit around eagerly chatting about Santa Claus and all the wonderful goodies he was going to bring us.
That year, my grandma bought me one of those cushions that folded out into a little bed. They were all the rage that year, and I absolutely loved it. So much so that I decided I was going to sleep on it! I’d be downstairs in the living room, but that was okay because I had an Uncle who was in town staying with us. He was sleeping on the couch, as I was on the floor by the Christmas tree.
We dozed off, but in the middle of the night, I woke up. It was Christmas Eve after all. I was having trouble sleeping. I rolled over to make sure my Uncle was still there. It was incredibly dark, but the moonlight was trickling in through the living room windows, and I saw someone sitting on the love seat.
“That’s weird,” I thought. Uncle Gary went to sleep on the couch. But, again, it was so dark, I couldn’t really see too well. I finally said, “Uncle Gary, what are you doing?” He was a Vietnam vet that came back struggling with the experience. He was prone to do “different” things at times, but I wanted to make sure he was okay. Awfully weird to just get up and sit staring into nothingness in the middle of the night, right?
Well, Uncle Gary raised up from under a sea of blankets on the couch, just where he initially went to bed. The love seat was occupied by a figure I didn’t recognize, nor did I care to. Uncle Gary said, “what’s wrong Stoney?”
Being a kid, I didn’t want to look like a wimp in front of my Uncle Gary, so I said, “nothing – bad dreams.” I rolled back over, pulled all the blankets up over my head, and eventually fell asleep. But, I remember sweating it out for what felt like an eternity.
To this day, I can vividly remember the scene, but I like to think it was just the imagination of a kid running wild. But, who knows for sure, right?
Image courtesy of Ganapathy Kumar on Unsplash!
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, second on Football & Other F Words, analyst for Stacking The Inbox, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, the NFL Draft, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.
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