BURLINGTON — Every table was full at the Lawrence County Multi-Purpose Senior Citizens Center Thursday, as seniors prepared to eat Christmas dinner with their friends before the center closes for the holiday season.

Along with the mouth watering menu including cornish hens on a bed of wild rice, acorn squash and green beans, it was also a chance for some to reflect on past holidays with their families.

Many seniors enjoyed remembering when.

“The Christmas of the Mouse,” is the name one particular holiday holds for Bobby and Joann Ellis.

Joann Ellis said their children were 9 and 11 years old and they wanted an old-time Christmas with toys under the tree from Santa.

Ellis said the children went to bed early. Around 1 a.m., when she thought it would be safe to start putting out the toys, Ellis was startled by her daughter squealing out from her room. She had heard a mouse in her closet and was calling for her big brother to come and get it. They proceeded to attempt to capture the mouse with much commotion.

“I could hear all this in the kitchen,” she said as she remembered with laughter.

At some point, Bob took over and saved the day in true father fashion.

“Bob came down the hall with that mouse in one hand, broom in the other marching down the hall with the children following him,” she said. “It was 3 a.m. until we got those toys under the tree.”

Everyone knows that if Santa Claus visits their house on Christmas Eve, it is the real Santa Claus, Oliver Nicholas said.

Nicholas’ two oldest boys were two and six when “Santa Claus” appeared at their house on Christmas Eve.

“My wife called the neighbors to bring their daughters by,” he said.

When the neighbor and her children came up the walk, the youngest son yelled to the girls, Pam and Betty, that it was his uncle dressed up like Santa Claus.

Edith Williams also took her children to a relative’s house once for a surprise visit from Santa Claus; only it was she who got the Christmas surprise that year.

“When the Santa came to knock on the kitchen window,” she said as she laughed. “It scared me half to death.”

Ronald and Nancy Stone remember one particular Christmas that they were recently discussing with their now grown son that involved Santa and a green LTD.

The kids were all wound up about Christmas, he said.

“We visited neighbors on Christmas evening,” he said.

They stayed at the people’s house a bit past the children’s bedtime and his son reminded them that they needed to get home and get into bed for Santa.

When they got to their house, which was way out in the country, they saw a man in full Santa attire with a bag walking down the street, heading to his green Ford LTD.

“Oh we’ve got to hurry,” Ronald said, remembering his young son’s words, who apparently thought that Santa Claus had traded Rudolph for a green LTD.