The Christmas Surprise

By Claire Field

At Christmas, all roads lead home.

~Marjorie Holmes

Christmas day is always crazy at my in-laws' house. Gran and Pops McClanahan have four adult children: three sons and a daughter. All have married and together they have produced ten grandchildren — seven boys and three girls, ages twelve and below. I married their youngest son, Sam.

In the summers and at Christmas we all gather, driving from our various homes on the East Coast, to spend time together at Gran and Pops' nine-bedroom summer house in Narragansett, Rhode Island. Although it's a large house, twenty people make it feel smaller, create sporadic "sleeping" schedules, and usually offer grab-what-you-can eating arrangements. I am often reminded of the "Old Woman in the Shoe" nursery rhyme where "she had so many children she didn't know what to do."

But as unruly it is for the adults, it is a blast for all the little cousins, and at Christmastime it's double the fun. The cousins have often not seen each other since summer and Santa is coming too!

Unlike some families, the McClanahans don't draw a single name out of a hat so each person only has to buy a single holiday gift — no, each family buys gifts for every other person. Gran and Pops love the over-the-top merriment.

Surprisingly, despite our five families, the McClanahans as a group only acquired one dog, a large Yellow Lab with a square mug named Rumbo, a resident of New Canaan, Connecticut with Gran and Pops most of the time. Rumbo was once considered my husband Sam's dog, since Sam was the one who spent the summer raising and training him back when he was a pup; but with our growing brood Rumbo officially moved to Gran and Pops' place, with us remaining occasional dog-sitters since we live nearby.

Two years ago, Christmas in Narragansett was like the previous ones — the kids were another year older, they still had boundless energy, and the promise of Santa energized them even more. Rumbo also had gotten older. He was nine and arthritic. He would wander around wagging his tail looking for a pat, but he spent most of his time away from the chaos of fast-moving children, snuggled in his well-worn dog bed.

That Christmas Eve we, not Gran and Pops, had brought Rumbo up from Connecticut. When we arrived and started to unpack I tossed Rumbo's dog bed under the huge, beautifully decorated Christmas tree. He looked the picture of doggie adorableness under the twinkling lights and ornaments, his large mug resting on the edge of his dog bed looking out at us.

By that evening all the other families had arrived, one by one, unloading more bedlam into the house. As the presents were added under the tree, Rumbo's bed shifted, but we all lavished him with a tummy rub and a quick snuggle as we scooted him this way and that. Giving us his normal "smile" and wag, he didn't seem to mind.

That evening we had a festive dinner, and after the cleanup, Gran let Rumbo out. We all went to bed, knowing we'd be up again in a few hours.

Indeed, at 5:30 the first of the kids awoke. One by one, the eager children herded their parents downstairs. Over the next few hours, seemingly hundreds of presents were torn open. Long-desired toys magically appeared, somewhat useless household items were passed among the parents, and laughter could be heard sprinkled between Christmas carols being played on someone's laptop. Paper and discarded wrappings were everywhere.

As I scanned the chaos I noticed Rumbo lying in his dog bed, wrapping paper scattered all around it. It was the first time I had focused on Rumbo since I had woken up, and I decided to give the guy a Christmas rub. As I walked toward him I wondered if anyone had remembered to feed him or let him out that morning. I didn't remember seeing him outside.

His eyes were open and I knelt down in front of him and pet his head.

"Merry Christmas, Rumbo!" I said, giving him a scratch.

Rumbo's eyes and mouth were open, and his long tongue was hanging out, but he didn't move. Suddenly I noticed that he felt sort of cold. As I looked into his unmoving eyes and held their vacant gaze, I realized that Rumbo… was dead.

"OMG!" I wanted to text somebody. What the heck was I supposed to do?

I knelt in front of him, blocking him from the rest of the room, as my brain went into panic mode. It was Christmas morning. I was in a room full of children and there was a dead dog under the Christmas tree. I touched his leg — yes, it was stiff, and rigor mortis had set in.

I actually laughed. I realized that it was a perfect McClanahan Christmas moment. Most people find squirming puppies under their tree, but here at the McClanahans… it's a little different. You always had to think on your feet around here.

I quickly deduced that this was a job for my husband — a "real" McClanahan. I stood up, casually pulled my husband aside, and gave him the facts. Word traveled fast through the adults. Each in turn looked over at the Christmas tree and saw Rumbo "asleep" underneath it.

I had recovered enough from the shock to ponder the details: Where does one take a deceased dog on Christmas? What happens when your vet lives three hours away? Who do you call? And then, how do you sneak a dead 120-pound dog out of a house full of ten children? If we chose to leave him where he was, when would one of the kids notice that Rumbo wasn't moving, or go over to pat him as I did?

Well, it turned out to be surprisingly easy. Each mom gathered her own brood to go do something "exciting" away from the family room, and the four dads got to work lifting the awkward, stiff dog, still in his dog bed, and placing him in the back of Pops' pickup truck. Someone grabbed a blanket and gently covered him.

And there Rumbo stayed on Christmas day, out in the fresh Rhode Island air.

It was a while before it occurred to one of the kids to wonder where Rumbo was. As a group we had decided not to tell them until Christmas was over. Our stock answer was to be "I don't know," which is normal since people never know where anyone else is in that house.

It certainly wasn't an easy decision to leave Rumbo outside, in the back of a pickup truck, on Christmas, of all days, but we told ourselves that our options were limited. We were sure that Rumbo — the kindest, and most gentle dog in the whole world — had joined Santa on his sleigh, and together they were finishing up the rest of Santa's Christmas deliveries.

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