Reverend Franklin Graham got nostalgic this Christmas and recalled the fun memories his late mother Ruth used to stir up during the holidays.
"My mother was such a jokester — and she loved Christmas. She enjoyed decorating the house from end to end. She also loved to play practical jokes," he shares on his Facebook page. "One time she and father were flying to Asia on a 4-engine piston-powered Constellation that had sleeping births. Grady Wilson, who had grown up with my father in Charlotte, NC, and was on his evangelism team, was also on board."
Because it was such a long flight, Grady was all set to take a sleeping pill and sleep the trip away. The medication came in capsules back then, so Ruth thought it would be hilarious to take a couple of those capsules apart and replace the sleeping medication with powdered mustard.
"Grady couldn't sleep a wink and took another one of my mother's rigged pills later—still no sleep. He didn't find out until 40 years later that my mother was behind that sleepless night! They all had a big laugh about it," says Graham.
Grady was not Ruth's only victim during Christmas. Graham himself became the subject of his mother's pranks one Christmas, and thinking about it now made him miss her even more.
"I remember one Christmas morning all of us kids ran downstairs as fast as we could to check our stockings first thing. I was so shocked at the 'surprise' I found in mine — lo and behold — ashes and switches in my stocking!" shares Graham.
Ruth said Graham's reaction then was priceless, but she did not make the young boy suffer any longer. "She had all of my stocking stuffers hidden within reach, and she put her arms around me and told me how much she loved me. It is one of my favorite Christmas memories," says Graham.
