Christmas Eve has always been the big, you-have-to-be-there holiday event for the Stemnock Family. Immediately the aroma of turkey and stuffing, ham and potato salad usher you into the warm house. There are homemade cookies and nut roll. Christmas candy everywhere. Anticipation hangs in the air, accompanied by these delicious scents and beautiful holiday sights.

As each family member arrives, they quietly sneak into the living room to place presents under the tree, and into a specially designated spot. Along with our traditions of Christmas Eve dinner and Midnight Mass, there has evolved this wonderful game we’ve been playing for more than 30 years. Everyone wins a prize; could be a good prize or could be something funny. Even though we’ve lost a few players in that time, one little guest returns each year, a little more worn, and always camouflaged so as not to give away his presence. He is a rubber chicken — a very old and quite decrepit rubber chicken. Someone is going to take that poor plastic poultry home, keep him the entire year, and bring him back for someone else to win.

After our Christmas feast is finished and all the kids have opened their gifts, we start the game. Each person brings a gift of relatively equal value. We each pick a folded piece of paper with a number written on it. Then, one by one, in order, we choose a gift from the pile. No one wants that dreaded chicken, and yet everyone is waiting to see who is going to be stuck with him this Christmas.

The trick is to dress him up, or package him uniquely so that some unsuspecting merrymaker chooses that present. Our nephew took a Polaroid shot of the chicken, placed it in a box way too small for the chicken itself, and had a ransom note inside. One year, we had the chicken shrink-wrapped on a Styrofoam platter like he had just come from the grocery store. Each year we try to up the creativity in hiding the chicken’s identity. Trust me, we have had more fun with this game over the years, and all because of a silly rubber chicken showing up each and every Christmas Eve.

Our memories are golden. They warm our hearts, especially when we think of those who no longer remain. But that smile creeps across your face, that light-heartedness that brings you to a laugh, all because of a tradition that happened by chance, so many Christmas Eves ago.

With the help of her nephew, Robert Stemnock, Sister Bernadine Marie shared this story
before her passing on December 15, 2024. It is among the many smiles she left behind.