Holidailies Prompt: What is your favorite holiday tradition, and why?
Francis Bacon, Study for a Running Dog, c. 1954
My favorite holiday tradition isn’t exactly a well known one, but it’s one that my family have jumps into with gusto.
We love to stuff ourselves with a great dinner, we play some games and then when you are settled in and feeling warm and happy and your guard is down we start to tell ghost stories.
My favorite ghost stories always involved animals. Those stories stuck with me and one of my favorites was one that Great Grand Uncle Percy told one about his Aunt Lorna and her dog Tippy.
Victoria BC December 24th 1905
Lorna and Tippy died in a fire on Christmas Eve. If that wasn’t tragic enough, Uncle Percy said that Lorna actually got out of the house in time but Tippy was trapped in the kitchen and Lorna was standing there on her lawn in the middle of the night with her house lighting up the dark night – the fire burned so bright he said that it looked like the shining at noon- listening to Tippy howling in fear and pain.
Just as help got there they saw Lorna running back into her house for Tippy and with seconds the entire house collapsed in flames.
Shortly after Lorna’s death my Great Grandfather’s family left Canada and they moved to Seattle, Washington.
The memories you see where more then anyone could bear- Lorna and Tippy’s deaths weighed on them so they left those sad deaths behind them- or so they thought.
The first Christmas the Godfrey’s spent in Washington state was a quiet one- the food was good, the games were played and the carols were sung and when it came to the part of the evening where the story telling would start, they sat in the sitting room with the decorated tree in one corner and the cold unlit fireplace hidden behind a three panel fireplace screen with a dog’s face smiling out at them.
My Uncle said that someone suggested maybe some music would be nice when they heard someone at the door.
First they heard a little metalic rattle and then they heard a little tap, tap, tap on the door.
Aunt Lorna had taught her dog, who was named Princess at the time to ‘tap ‘ on the door when she wanted into a room or they were visiting friends or family. It was Uncle Percy’s daughter who was learning to talk at the time who said, ” Princess is Tippy at the door. Let her in! ”
Eventually Princess became Tippy.
My family doesn’t rattle easiy, their brains are well wired and though they had faults, as we all do, glitching brains was not one of them.
Uncle Lewis was the one who went to the door. He was the one who opened it. He was the first one who saw Tippy sitting at the door wearing her Christmas collar that Aunt Lorna had made special for her- it had a generous red bow on the side and little silver bells hanging from the front on a little loop.
Tippy stood, she wagged her tail and then she walked past Uncle Lewis straight to the fireplace. She turned in three circles and then she settled down with a happy little sigh.
My family settled on some music and little glasses of sherry and when the evening was over, Tippy got up and walked to the front door.
Aunt Gertie opened the door and she let Tippy out.
They heard the little bells for a few minutes and then they were quiet.
Tippy still visits our family at Christmas.
Sometimes she acts like our other dogs, she tries to take food from the table. She asks for her chin to be scratched.
There are other times when she’s just a shadow near the Christmas tree, a tinkling of little bells but she is always there.
Very much in the same way she is here now as I write this.
Merry Christmas.
AMG
