Villa de Loon

By Tiber

We woke up on Christmas morning to find that not only were about half of the Christmas presents gone, but our entire tree had been stolen as well. In spite of the difficulty of breaking into this house, someone had obviously done it. We were all very depressed, until Dad, who’s seen the film, “A Christmas Story,” went over suddenly and smelled the dogs.

He then whirled around and accosted the rest of us.

“Do they have Spam breath?!?

They did, of course, It’s sort of hard to miss. Dad quickly hurried down the hall and soon, he spotted one of the missing gifts, along with a trail of pine needles. We followed along, finding more and more busted-up gift boxes along the way. And we saw that the Christmas tree had been dragged all the way down three hallways and then out the back door.

We rushed outside and there it was, sparkling in the winter sunlight, a little crooked but still standing, brightening up a formerly empty flower bed and providing food for the birds, who were excitedly pecking at the branches.

You see, once again, Dad had brought home more cases of Spam, trying to get us to spend less money on food and, once again, everyone in his family was trying to get rid of it.

Mom had stuffed hers into the gingerbread-house ornaments on the tree. My brother Duncan’s triplets – (I’ll write more about them later. Sometimes you save the best for last. This will not be one of those times) had taken some craft supplies that Grandma Noni had given them, plus what looked like toilet paper rolls and some doll parts and had built what can only be described as a Barbie rocket launcher. Late in the night, they had managed to shoot countless loaves of Spam across the length of the living room and impale them on the branches of the tree.

In my older post, “The Spam Tolls for Thee,” I wrote about how the last time Dad brought home cases of Spam, Duncan had crafted me a Spam girlfriend, declaring that she was bound to last longer than any of my real ones. Well, here she was again too, since Duncan had stuck her under the tree for me to find on Christmas morning, only to have her dragged outside when the dogs took the tree.

Of course, this only proved Duncan’s point further. She was now caught on the inside branches so the dogs weren’t able to get to her, proving once again that she’s still lasting longer than any of my real girlfriends.

The whole thing was a sight but, as it turned out, Dad decided that he loved the tree disappearing and then being found again outside, feeding the birds and reanimating the flower bed. He called it a Christmas miracle. Unfortunately, I think the real miracle is going to be if we can ever stop Dad from bringing home any more Spam.