Tony Hooper Saves Christmas

Hi, my name is Tony Hooper
And I'm in the fourth grade

First of all, you should know that my grandpa
Papa Hooper
Loved Christmas more than anybody else
In the whole world

Every year at Christmas
We'd all sit at the dining room table
And Papa Hooper would make us go around
And say what Christmas means to us

My Dad would say--Christmas means time off from work
And my Mom would say--Christmas means a nice dinner...catered by someone else
And my brother Harry would say--Christmas means hope...the hope that one day Felicia Fliksado will realize that she and I are meant to be together.

Then my grandpa would look at me and say--

'Well, Tony, what do you think Christmas means?'

And I'd always say the wrong answer.

'Christmas means Blood Savage 5 is coming out tonight.  This time blood smells like...revenge.'
'Christmas means by tomorrow morning I'll be playing Guns and Glory and talking to Fat Pants on my new iPhone.'
'Christmas means once again giving Aunt Cindy the 'No-of-course-i-like-this-ugly-cardigan' face.'

And every year, Papa Hooper would laugh
And shake his head
And say 'Maybe next year, Tony.  When you're a little bit older.'

That's my first of all

Second of all, I should tell you
That Papa Hooper isn't spending Christmas with us this year

Over the summer, he got real sick
And right before I went back to school
He passed away
Which means he died

It took awhile for my Mom to explain that to me
Because she kept saying stuff like--

'He's moved on'

Moved on to where, I said?
Canada?

(I hear it's nice up there.)

That's my second of all

'It's going to be a hard Christmas this year,' my Mom said this morning, while she was showing the caterers where to put the stuffed mushrooms, 'And it's your sister's first.'

I was already expecting it to be a sad Christmas
Since with a new baby in the family
My present count was going to go down, down, down

At least my sister Tina is a girl
So I don't have to share stuff with her

She was the only one smiling at the dinner table
When my Dad cleared his throat
And said we should go around and say
What Christmas means to us

It got real quiet

Like, you know when they say silence is deafening?

Well, I wasn't deaf
I could still hear Mrs. Tanner across the street
Yelling at her husband
For forgetting to buy the right kind of ham

'I can't do this,' said my Mom, 'It's too sad without him here.'

I think we were all thinking that
But nobody wanted to say it

Then I looked at my sister
And she wasn't smiling anymore

Even though she was only a baby
She could probably tell
How sad we all were

And that's when I knew the answer

'We can't ruin Christmas for Tina,' I said, 'Papa wouldn't want that.  He loved Christmas.  He'd want us to be happy and remember how much fun we all had together.  If we wanted to, we could make every Christmas about somebody who's not here anymore.  Great Aunt Mary.  Uncle Bo.  Great-Grandma Lucy with that eye that never really looked where it was supposed to.  But we don't do that.  We've never done that.  We make Christmas about who's here, and we keep the people who aren't in our hearts.  That's what Christmas means.  It means being happy for the people who are here, not sad for the people who are gone.'

Then I went under the tree
Picked out the present I made for Tina
And brought it to her high chair

It was a picture of all of us last Christmas
When Mom was pregnant with Tina
And I was sitting next to Papa Hooper
And it was before he got sick
And we all looked so happy

I put the photo in a frame
Made out of Popsicle sticks

On the bottom I wrote--

'To Tina, This is Your Family'

I wanted her to see
How happy we were
She was going to spend next Christmas
With us

My family all looked at the photo
And then my Mom clapped her hands together

'Well,' she said, 'Those caterers didn't slave over a hot stove all day for nothing.  Let's eat.'

Then my Dad picked up Tina
And did that thing he does
Where he pretends to eat her ear
And she laughs
Even though I think it's pretty horrifying

Pretty soon everybody was laughing
And eating

And I thought to myself--

I wonder if there's a reason it took me this long
To figure out the meaning of Christmas

Maybe the answer came to me
Right on time

Or maybe
While I was listening to Mrs. Tanner throw a pot at her husband
My grandpa whispered the answer into my ear

Either way, I'm glad I saved Christmas

I think Papa Hooper
Would have been really proud

That's my third of all

Oh, and as for Third of All Part B

Merry Christmas
From the Hoopers