Blogmas 2016 – Harriet

Day 8

I mentioned in a previous post that my sister and I often brought in “strays” for Christmas. One year, when she and her husband were living in Edmonton, they came for the holiday and brought a friend with them, Bev.

Bev was expecting and didn’t want to be alone over Christmas so she was invited to join us. She also brought her little beagle puppy, Harriet. My sister had two dogs, we had two dogs, and Harriet made five!

The house was crazy busy with six people trying to get ready for the big day and Harriet was having the time of her life. She knocked the tree over a couple of times until my Dad anchored it to the wall. She pulled bows and tags off presents and we had to scramble to get them back on the right ones.

I had bought a special treat for our two dogs, Brandy and Pepper. It was dog food made to look like ground hamburger – the flavor I got was “cheeseburger”. I wrapped it and hid it way in the back under other presents so that they wouldn’t get at it. Well, guess who was able to slip in and locate it without anyone seeing her. The evidence was a trail of these weird brown and orange “wormy” looking things all over the house. Of course, the other four dogs were helping themselves to the scraps.

Harriet ended up getting sick on all she ate. When it came time for my Dad to carve the turkey, Harriet was curled up asleep in one of the bedrooms. She missed out on the best part of Christmas for the dogs! Dad would carve it in the kitchen and the dogs would all come running and wait at his feet. Then he would throw them each a small scrap as he carved. Our two dogs and my sister’s one dog, Toki, were very familiar with this tradition as it happened anytime there was meat to carve!

I absolutely loved little Harriet and was really sad when they left. She was a brat, but very loveable as well. And she made it one of the best Christmases ever!

A year and a half later, I went to stay with my sister (I think I was 12), and because she and her husband worked, I spent the day with Bev, her son and Harriet and Toki. Harriet had grown considerably from that little puppy who raised Christmas havoc but she was still as sweet as ever.

Lydia!