Walnut Grove, Minn.-Breaking news from the snowed-in Ingalls home indicate that this Christmas has supplanted everyone’s Christmas they never forgot.
“After spending all day, all night, and then this whole day again in this house, I am telling you, I have seen some things in my day but this about tops them all,” Hester Sue begins. “If they had asked me this morning what the Christmas was that I never forgot, I would have told them we were living it right now.”
The previous evening, after Adam and Mary Kendall arrived at the end of a long journey from New York City to spend Christmas with the family, several people shared stories about the Christmas they never forgot–not realizing, of course, that a great blizzard would trap them in the house the next morning.
“It was all fun and games at first,” Charles Ingalls comments. “I used the snow shoes to get out to the barn with snow so high it was nearly to the roof and brought the presents in. That was fun. But fun like that can only get you so far when you realize that you’re stuck inside the rest of the day with no way to get to the outhouse.”
As Charles downs his tenth cup of coffee, Almanzo agrees with him.
“Have you ever spent the night sleeping at a table, waking up with one of the biggest neck cramps you’ve ever had in your life, and then realize that you’re going to spend the entire day with your in-laws in a tiny house with no walls sharing a makeshift chamber pot?” Almanzo bemoans. “Makes me wish Beth and I had waited that two years to get married like Charles wanted us to just so I wouldn’t have to deal with it.”
Mary similarly finds the situation miserable, musing that “whether or not it’s true that your other senses are enhanced when you lose your sight, I can tell you this–my nose still works. Still, it’s nice to see the family. We Ingalls are used to a little misery here and there.”
At press time, Adam spoke for the first time during the holiday celebration when he stated that he couldn’t believe they had travelled all this way just to ask everyone to turn around while he peed in a pot in the Ingalls kitchen.
