We always eat at my Gramma's house for Christmas. Everybody comes that day and I like it a lot, except for seeing Eric.

Eric is a little brat, even if he is my cousin. He is only four years old, and he whines all the time. I wish he would just stop. It hurts my ears after a long time from hearing it. He is too small to play Tiddley Winks the right way, and I won't let him touch my new Roy Rogers pistols, so I can't do anything with him. Gram won't let us run in the house, so we all have to hear him whine until Aunt Betty gets tired of it and smacks him on his butt. She makes him stand in the corner for awhile but then he stands there and screams, so that doesn't help. I don't know why they let him do that stuff.

All the women help to put dishes of food on the table, and it all looks so yummy. I'm starved by that time.

"Come and get it, everybody," Gram yells like we're a long ways away when we are right there in the living room listening to Fibber Magee and Molly. Gram always does that.

Gramps turns the radio off, and all of us guys go to the table. Gramps sits on one end, and Uncle Glenn sits on the other end. Aunt Betty puts her hand on mine and stops me from grabbing a roll. She shushes everybody up so she can say Grace. We never do that any other times, but we do Christmas Day just like we do at Thanksgiving time. Then we get to eat.

There's mashed potatoes, turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top, corn on the cob (soaked in butter), baked squash, (yuck), biscuits with butter, brown gravy, and my favorite--cranberry sauce. We get all that, and we kids get to have chocolate milk because it's a special day. Uncle Glenn and Gramps drink coffee. Mommy and Gram drink wine. Aunt Betty doesn't drink anything excepting for water.

When everybody is done eating, we still have three different kinds of pie that Gram baked yesterday.. There's pumpkin, rhubarb, and mincemeat. Plus, Aunt Betty brought her special thing she makes, called fruitcake. It has lots of different colored pieces of stuff in it, but nobody except her knows what the things are. It looks real pretty, but it doesn't taste as good as Gram's pumpkin pie.

I'm allowed to have seconds on turkey and stuffing, and I pour tons of gravy on it. After that, I'm so full that my stomach is swollen up, and it aches. I won't tell anybody about it; I'll just wait for it to feel better before I have pie.

"Go ahead, Butchie. Have some of Aunt Bett's fruitcake, Honey," said Aunt Betty.

"I will, in a little while, Aunt Betty," I say. I wonder why that makes me feel more sicker.