When the Moon Shined on Christmas

Pastor Jerguson wanted a candle light communion service on Christmas Eve. The church had invited the whole community. When the discussion of what to serve for the juice portion of the supper came up, one of the deacons said they ought to serve the regular grape juice for the Baptists and have the real stuff for the not so spiritually minded. Grady and Goober were given the job of securing the real stuff.

Since neither had ever tasted wine or even knew how to buy it they went over to Uncle Titus’ to get some advice. Uncle Titus had an apparatus of questionable character out back so they figured him to be somewhat of an expert. He said with this being a dry county, the best he could do was suggest they take some of the clear liquid dripping from the copper spicket and mix it in with the grape juice. “That ought to make ‘em some high octane Welch's,” he said.

“Ain’t that stuff a might strong?” Goober asked.

“Not if you mix it right,” Uncle Titus answered.

That being the best idea they could come up with, they took a large pickle jar full and snuck it into the kitchen at the church. They took a cooler and mixed in the grape juice with the moonshine. In a few minutes they had filled all the little cups and set everything aside for the service later that night.

It was somewhere around the moment Pastor Jerguson said, “Drink this in remembrance of Me,” that Grady and Goober remembered they were supposed to separate out the real stuff from the grape juice.

“Did you?”

“Naw, did you?”

“We’re dead,” Grady whispered. About that time the 200 proof Welch's was somewhere deep in the throats of the overflow congregation. The room filled with coughs and sputters. Sister Alma let loose with a “whoo” and some of the folks thought she might have gotten the Spirit. A group from the AA chapter the church sponsored rushed out to attend a quick, impromptu meeting down in the basement as members were quickly falling off the wagon. Others just stood there licking their cups down to the second layer of the plastic.

The next part on the program was lighting the candles and singing Silent Night. Everything was fine until Pastor Jerguson told everyone to blow out their candles. The fumes from their breaths ignited balls of flame. Rose Templeton yelled out that her hair was on fire. The room glowed in a blazing orange. Pastor Jerguson had everyone bow their heads and rushed over to throw the linen that covered the communion table over her head and smother out Mrs. Templeton’s smoldering hair, all the while praying the closing prayer. When he said amen, the lights came back on and Grady and Goober were gone. In fact they stayed gone for a couple of months. After they came back, no one ever asked them to set up the Lord’s Supper again. Which was fine with them.