We have to go meet the pizza delivery guy. I am always jealous of people in cities who can ride their bikes on sidewalks and have lemonade stands and have pizza delivered right to their doors. Dad orders pizza from the pizza place in Nashville, and then he has to go meet the pizza guy at Van Buren. The extra mile and half from the elementary school to our house is too much for the delivery guy to manage.

Dad heads out to the Crouch’s Market to rent a VHS and get some Coke. Coke doesn’t necessarily mean Coca Cola. “Coke” is any sort of dark soda, the way any tissue is a “Kleenex” or any photo opportunity is a “Kodak Moment.” We get to ride along.

Crouch’s Market has been around since the dinosaurs. It smells like gun oils and wood and the felt that covers a pool table. Norma runs the store. She sells lunch meat and souvenir hats and live bait. Right up by the counter, there are racks with Sour Straws and Kit Kats and Big League Chew Bubblegum.

The movie rentals are in three long rows. Dad rents the same movies every time – “Aliens.” “Predator.” “Terminator.” “Jurassic Park.” “Starship Troopers.”

One time, Gary and I found a huge mushroom in the woods and took my picture with it. It hangs on a board in the back room at Crouch’s, by the pool tables. I like to find it every time we go there. Pictures of Papaw and Troy and Gary with deer and turkeys they hunted are on display there too. We’re famous.

When we get home, Dad munches on the circus peanuts that always accompany a trip to Crouch’s. He cracks and shells nuts while he sits on the couch watching football or basketball or “Rambo.” He mixes peanut butter and syrup in a bowl and makes sandwiches with it.

Maybe once a year, he’ll order a pizza. He calls the pizza place in Nashville. Places the order. Waits a half an hour or forty-five minutes and heads out to Van Buren Elementary to meet the delivery guy who won’t come all the way out to our house.

Snow leaves our yard completely covered in at least a foot of fluffy white. Dad sets about making a snow village in the driveway. Some dads shovel snow so you can get the car out or make a path from the back door to the mailbox.

My Dad makes an igloo and a snow bench that lines the entire driveway. He creates snow chairs and a television with knobs and antennae. My Brother and I make lumpy snowmen out front. They don’t stand a chance in the face of Dad’s art and architecture and smooth edges and pristine, flat surfaces.

 He thinks he’s an artist. Sometimes, I believe him.

Christmas Eve is at Nana and Papaw’s house. I hear sleigh bells outside, and when we open the front door, a McDonald’s Play Set is out there waiting for me on the porch! I make Gary crawl all on his knees past the drive-thru window and order from a menu of plastic pancakes and rubber fries.

Before it gets too late, we have to go home so we can get to sleep before Santa comes. Mom always says we have to wait until Christmas morning to open our presents, but we are insistent and persuasive little boogers.

“Okay,” she finally says. “You can open your stockings. But that is all.” But we already know we’ve won. An hour and a half later, we sit in a pile of tape and shredded paper and toys we can’t take out of the box yet because we’ll lose the pieces in the mess.

We set out cookies and milk on the kitchen counter. We set out celery and carrots for the reindeer. We feel bad that everyone else forgets about the reindeer. They’re the ones doing all the work, you know – all that flying.

In the morning, Mom wakes us up. She can’t wait for us to get up on our own. She wants us to see what Santa brought. In the dining room, in front of the fireplace, little globs of melted snow on the floor show us the route Santa took from the Christmas tree to the kitchen for cookies and then back up the chimney.  The celery and carrots are nibbled too.

All of our presents from Nana and Mom and Sissy are wrapped and under the tree for ages before Christmas. In the weeks leading up to it, my brothers and I divide up our stacks and shake the boxes and count who has more and therefore must be more loved.

But Christmas morning – Santa Presents – this is different. These presents aren’t wrapped. Four shiny new toys sit in front of the Christmas tree. Our names are displayed in curly, North Pole-esque letters. Our stockings are also magically full again. Candy. Squirt guns. Lip gloss. Teeny figurines. We gorge on sweets and Tic-tac’s. We watch Christmas Vacation before lunch and after lunch and before bed, quoting every single line.

The stores are all closed. So are the restaurants. No one is on the computer or a cell phone or even earphones. We sit cozily ensconced in our little house, losing pieces of our new toys in the discarded wrapping paper, bundling up for brief sledding and snowman building and creek ice skating adventures. We come back inside; our snow-covered things end up sopping wet in the floor by the door.

Hot chocolate.  Eggnog. Homemade peanut brittle and a cheese tray that someone left for Papaw on the mail route. We finally feel brave enough to sneak the candy canes from the tree that have been hanging there as decoration. I like the sweet ones with rainbow colors that taste like skittles or bubble gum.

Our Christmas – the jolliest of holidays.

It is dark and cold and drizzling. Papaw and Gary let us come hunting with them, and we have camouflage overalls zipped up to our necks. Papaw has a flashlight on his belt and on his hat. They are carrying shot guns slung across their backs. The dogs are straining on their leashes, whining and barking. They know what's coming.

They pull the dogs close and soothe them for a minute. “Shhhh, girl. Shhh,” the grown men coo, petting the dogs' heads and trying to get a grasp on the leash latch, trying to let the dogs run free. “Go get ‘em, boys! Go on!” The dogs take off with a yelp and we hear them from what seems like miles away, barking and scratching and treeing animals we can’t see in the dark.

Gary shines his flashlight up into the tree. Big, eerie glowing eyes stare down at us from a tree branch. It’s an opossum or a raccoon. The dogs are going crazy at the base of the tree. They jump up on their hind legs and paw at the tree trunk, like they would climb right on up the tree if they could just get a good grip. Their tales are swinging so violently, and they thump each other on the backs and butts, excited beyond belief.

But it is so dark and cold and wet. My legs hurt and my eyes are heavy and I just want to be warm. Why is this taking so long? How long do we have to stay out here? Papaw, can we go back in now?

When Papaw shoots a squirrel, he lets me carry it back down the hill to the yard. It is limp and warm and so much heavier than I thought it would be. I carry it by the back legs, clenching my fingers to hold its unexpected weight. Suddenly, I feel a pulse, a heartbeat. I feel it against my thumb. I fling the squirrel to the ground.

“Papaw! It’s alive! I felt its heartbeat!” I holler.

“No, no. That’s just your own heartbeat. You can feel it in your thumb.”

“No! It’s alive!”

“Here.  Press your thumb and your first finger together really hard. There, just like that. Do you feel it? Is that what it felt like?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Do you feel how slow it is? If it was the squirrel, it would be beating really really fast. “

I’m not quite convinced that the squirrel is dead, but I trust Papaw, so I hold it very gingerly between my thumb and first finger, just like he said. I have to press hard, though, because it is so heavy. I can feel the heartbeat again, but its slow like he said.

Back in the yard, he starts to skin it. I hold the squirrel, one foot in each hand. It's hanging upside down, spread-eagled. Papaw takes out his knife and runs it right along the center of the squirrel’s belly. I can feel the skin and muscles and tendons give way, the legs spread farther and farther apart in my hands. He pulls the guts out.

This is so cool.