The Christmas Eve Left Right Story

It was Christmas Eve at the Hendersons' house, and Mom had a plan, and she was sure it was the right one. Ham at six, right on time. Church at eight. Kids in bed by ten, no matter what was left to wrap. Dad would put the new bike together right after that, out in the garage, quietly. She stuck the plan on the fridge, right in the middle, where nobody could miss it. By noon it had slipped down behind the fridge on the left side, and that was the last anyone saw of the plan.

At one o'clock, Grandma June called to say she was on her way and had left the sweet potatoes on her kitchen counter. Could somebody pick them up right away? Dad said he'd go right now. He went left out of the driveway, remembered that Grandma lives to the right, turned right around in the Petersons' driveway, and waved at Mr. Peterson, who was up a ladder on the left side of his roof and did not wave back.

While Dad was gone, Tyler and Abby frosted the cookies for Santa right at the kitchen table. Tyler did the ones on the left side of the tray. Abby did the ones on the right. Tyler's were neat, every one lined up right in a row. Abby's had so much frosting you had to pick them up with two hands, and one had a raisin right in the center, which Abby said was a nose and Tyler said was a crime. Abby said hers were better. Tyler said she was not right.

Pickles the dog watched all of this from under the table, left ear up, right ear down. Pickles has one rule at Christmas: stay right next to the ham. When the ham came out of the oven, Pickles moved right. When Mom carried it left to the counter, Pickles moved left. When Mom turned her back for one second, Pickles moved right up onto a kitchen chair.

Nobody saw what happened next, not even Tyler, who was standing right there. But when Mom turned around, the ham was where she had left it, and it was a little smaller, and Pickles was lying very still on the rug to the left of the stove with the face of a dog who has never seen a ham in his life.

Then the doorbell rang, right on cue. Uncle Phil was here, right on time for once, with a gift bag in his left hand, a gift bag in his right hand, and a third gift bag in his teeth. Uncle Phil does not wrap. He hasn't since the year he left for college. He says bags are reusable. This is true, and these were the same bags as last year, right down to the tissue paper.

Grandma June came in right behind him. Dad came in right behind her with the sweet potatoes, and also a second dish of sweet potatoes, because Grandma had made two and only mentioned one. She said the second dish was left over from a church thing. The kitchen counter now had sweet potatoes on the left, sweet potatoes on the right, and a ham with a corner missing.

At five-thirty, Tyler plugged in the outdoor lights on the left side of the porch, and every light in the house went out. The tree went out. The oven went out. The garage door stopped halfway, right where it was. Somewhere off to the right in the dark, Uncle Phil said, "Well, that's not right," and Grandma said, "Phil, the breaker box is in the garage, on the left," and Phil said, "Your left or my left?" and Grandma said, "The left that's right, Phil."

It took Dad twenty minutes, feeling his way left along the counter, to find the flashlight, which was in the drawer on the right, where it always is, underneath the batteries that would have made it work. He flipped the breaker on the left, then the one on the right, just to be safe. The lights came back, left side first, then the right. The oven came back. Pickles was standing right where the ham had been, and the ham was now missing two corners.

Dinner was at six-forty, which was not exactly right, but close. Church was at eight, right across town. The Hendersons got there at eight-twelve and squeezed into the only open pew, way up front on the left. Abby sang every carol a little louder than everybody else and a few words ahead, and nobody had the heart to set her right. During "Silent Night," when the candles were lit, Tyler turned right to look at the candles behind him and nearly set the left sleeve of Uncle Phil's sweater on fire. Uncle Phil said it was all right. It was his Christmas sweater. It had been through worse.

Back home, the kids put out the cookies, a glass of milk, and a carrot for the reindeer, set right on the left edge of the plate. Tyler set the plate right in front of the fireplace. Abby slid it a little to the left, so Santa would see her cookies first. Tyler slid it back to the right. Abby slid it left. Tyler slid it right. Abby slid it left again. Mom said if anyone touched that plate one more time, Santa was going to the Petersons'.

Abby had also built a trap, which she said was the right thing to do. It was a shoebox on a string, right next to the tree, with a sign that said PLEASE STAND HERE SANTA, plus an arrow pointing left. Dad stepped in it twice, left foot and then right, before the kids were even upstairs. Grandma stepped in it once, with her right foot, and said it was very well designed.

The kids went up the stairs, left hand on the rail, at ten-fifteen. They came back down at ten-twenty because Abby had left her stuffed rabbit on the couch. They went right back up again. Tyler came down at ten-forty because he heard sleigh bells off to the left of the chimney. It was Uncle Phil's phone, in his left pocket. Tyler went right back up, but you could tell he didn't believe anybody.

At eleven, Dad went out to the garage, opened the bike box, and laid every part out in rows, left to right. The instructions came in eleven languages and had no words in any of them, just a smiling man holding a pedal. There were two pedals. One was marked L for left. One was marked R for right. The left pedal, it turns out, screws on backward, which nobody tells you, and which Dad learned at eleven-forty by trying very hard to put it on the right way.

Mom came out with two cups of coffee, one in her left hand and one in her right. Grandma came out with advice, most of it right. Uncle Phil came out with a wrench that was the right size for nothing. By twelve-thirty the bike was standing right up on its own. The handlebars pointed a little to the left. The seat leaned a little to the right. Mom said it looked right to her, and Dad said that was the nicest thing anyone had said to him all day.

They tiptoed back inside, left foot, right foot, very slowly. The cookies on the left side of the plate, the neat ones, were gone. The cookies on the right side, Abby's, with the raisin, were untouched. The milk was gone too, right down to the last drop. Everybody looked right at Uncle Phil. Uncle Phil looked left at Pickles. Pickles looked at nobody.

Then Grandma brought out a stack of wrapped presents she had been hiding in her trunk, on the left under the spare tire, since Thanksgiving. "One each," she said, handing them out left to right. "For the grown-ups. And you don't get to pick. And no trading, right?" She made everybody sit in a circle on the living room floor, left of the tree, right next to the shoebox trap, and pass the presents while she told a story. Every time she said left, everybody passed left. Every time she said right, everybody passed right.

So they passed left. They passed right. They passed left, left, right, right, left, and Uncle Phil tried to keep the one shaped like a bottle and got caught. Right again. Left again. They passed right, then left, and Dad, who had been awake since five in the morning, passed his to the left so slowly it took a full minute.

And right then, Grandma stopped. "That's the end of the story," she said. "Merry Christmas. Whatever you're holding is yours." Which is exactly what I'm telling you. The story's over. Open your gifts.