The words of Evelyn Haroldine DeBorde:

“When we lived on the farm in Cove, there were 353 or so people then, but it never changed. We lived off Canyon Rd, and it was Christmas time. There was snow on the road. My sister Kathy, who was two years younger than myself, and my brother Charles, who was two years older, were with me. Kathy was a baby, and mother had told us we had to go to bed before Santa would come.” (Grandma asked me and Tove if we believed that, then looked at the camera and said, “Well, we did.”)

“But we were still up, and mother was giving Kathy a bath. We were sitting in the kitchen, and momma had Kathy on her lap. All of a sudden—guess what? We heard the sleigh bells on the roof. Mother jumped up, dropped Kathy on the floor” (Grandma gave us a good laugh), “and we all got ourselves together. Boy, did we get ourselves to bed, because we knew Santa was on the rooftop.”

Additional information about this story:

These stories are right out of the mouth of my beloved grandmother. We have some family videos that I am typing out word for word. These videos are available for viewing on YouTube; search for DeBorde or Patterson.

Date:
Location: Cove, Oregon; told in Redland, Oregon

You can hear this story as told by Evelyn in the following video: