Christmas Puppies

Penny Helton tells this story of her most unusual Christmas Day:
One Christmas we recieved a very unusual gift. We had had our usual Christmas gift exchange that Christmas morning and had our meal and we were just relaxing in the afternoon.
One of my sons found a mother dog and her pups in the meadow behind our house. The mother dog was dying and had moved away from the puppies and was several feet away from them. We drug her onto our carport and cared for her as best we could. She was our neighbor's dog and he was away but we didn't know why at the time. The mother dog died the next day. There were three puppies and they were as cute as could be.
We named them St. Nickolas, Christmas, and Noel since we found them on Christmas day. Since I already had 3 dogs I knew we couldn't keep them, but we each claimed one.
Mine was Christmas who I nicknamed Chris. All of them were fuzzy except the one that Danny and Stephanie claimed. He was slick haired. His name was St. Nickolas.
The puppies were older than we thought because their eyes were open in just a few days. We bought the special powdered mild from the vet for them and Danny and Stephanie got up at night and fed them the 2 am feeding. You didn't have to worry about missing it because they would let us know when they were hungry.
Danny and Stephanie had only been married a few months and they were living with us. They were good about getting up and feeding the puppies at night. When they moved to their own place they took St. Nickolas with them.
I gave Noel to a friend and I gave Chris to a patient's little grandchild who was 3 years old so I know he got lots of love and I didn't feel so bad about letting him go although I did cry a few tears.
We always call this the Christmas God gave us a gift. We enjoyed saving those puppies and bottle feeding and cuddling them, but I hope we don't get another Christmas gift like that.