Another

[Jolly]

And y'all just think I ran out of Christmas stories.

Kendall and Rodney were the original Mutt & Jeff brothers. How my Uncle Alvin ever sired two such unalike critters, is a subject to be taken up with Aunt Ethel, and it would have been a mean discussion, except both boys looked a bit like Uncle Alvin, at least in the face. Kendall was big enough to go bear hunting with a switch and leave the switch at home. He was almost six and a half feet tall and weighed at least 350 pounds. Rodney was about five and a half feet tall, weighed maybe 160 pounds and spoke so slow, words almost froze in his mouth.

Both boys could work most grown men in the ground by the time they were thirteen. My Uncle Alvin worked for Lone Star Feed, and was occasionally on the road, leaving the boys to work the truck farm, and tend to the cows and the feeder pigs. But come Christmas time, the bare minimum got done, because as Dickens wrote, those boys knew how to keep Christmas and keep it well.

They enjoyed their fireworks and shot off a few hundred dollars worth every year, and the families close to where they lived would drop by on Christmas Eve night for a cup of hot cider and watch the action on kind of a revolving door basis. Things did get a little out of hand, once the boys built the biggest carbide cannon in the community and started rattling windows over a mile away. But hey, it's Christmas!

Their ultimate celebration started as the boys became men and the men got a little older. Kendall had the chance to play Santa Claus a couple of times at family gatherings, he decided that he wanted to expand his role. Instead of a rented suit, Kendall bought a really nice one. And as big as he was, he made an imposing Santa Claus. But no less imposing was his brother Rodney the Elf, helping lug Santa's sack to the local nursing home or to different family gatherings.

The piece-de-resisdence was Santa's firetruck, though. Kendall bid on a 1950's worn-out ladder truck, that the boys rebuilt the motor in, repainted the truck International Harvester red (implement paint was cheaper) and somehow wired in an 8-track player to a PA system. Then, they ran twinkling mini lights over the truck. They built a Santa bench towards the back with a set of kid-friendly steps. Santa could either stay up on his seat, throwing candy canes to the kids or the truck could stop long enough for some kids to climb onto the truck and let the children tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas. The latter could be a problem, though, as Kendall became progressively deaf as the years rolled by.

It all morphed into a semi-tradition in the community, back in the seventies through the mid-nineties. An old IH red firetruck, red lights on, Christmas lights twinkling, siren blaring occasionally, Charlie Pride Christmas songs playing constantly, driven through the community by a grinning, green dressed elf, with Santa and two helper elves (the boy's wives), hanging on for dear life. Every now and then, some brave church group might clamber on the old truck and they'd turn the 8-track off and let the church group go caroling in front of people's houses, but the candy canes, elves and Santa Claus were always there for the ride.

Kendall's been gone for several years. So has his wife. Rodney retired from the water department a couple of years ago. The old firetruck is parked on the back of the farm, a pink, rusted hunk of metal, briars and thicket. But for awhile, it certainly made a mighty fine Santa's sleigh.

Yes, the brothers knew how to keep Christmas and they kept it well.