Saturday, January 10, 2009

RANDOM LIFE STORY SERIES: SANTA JAIL

My dad has quite the imagination. When we were little he would come up with the most outlandish, crazy things to do with us. Since we were kids, we thought it was awesome and LOVED it! One of the many things daddy came up with was Santa Jail. Yes, you Belnap children know what I'm talking about. It was basically a glorified version of hide-and-go-seek but daddy wore a Santa hat. If we got caught by "Santa" we were taken to the imaginary jail where he would lock us in by putting up the barrier. All this meant was standing against a wall while dad made the motion of putting a fence around the kids and making a noise - ch ch ch ch ch ch ch - to seal it. And for some reason we obeyed this fake jail and stayed "locked in" until everyone had been caught.

As many of the games in the Belnap household, Santa Jail included some serious chaos that resulted in an abrupt banishment of the game. When I was about 6 or 7 we were in a great round of Santa Jail when my sister Lindsay and I collided in the living room. In the collision I got pushed into the corner of the table. You can guess what happened next: slice my head open, blood, hospital, stitches, end of Santa Jail. Bye bye Santa Jail, hello new types of mischief. Sorry guys for permanently ending the game. Here is picture of me with my dad. This has absolutely nothing to do with Santa Jail but I like him a lot and can't wait for the next 18 months to fly by!

2 comments:

Liz said...

Ash, Dad says he was honored to have you write a story about the two of you. He actually laughed out loud when I read that to him. Those are some found memories, but I hate to break it to you, you were only 3 or 4 years old. Daddy took you to the ER because as usual he wouldn't let me come with you. Something about my over reacting and making things worse! And that was the end of Santa Jail; due to the fact your mother "freaked out"!

Lindsay said...

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!! I am so grateful to have you admit that it was a collision and not me pushing you. That game was the bomb! And, so are you.