I know this is called the “holiday season” but for me, it’s the “memory season.” And most of the memories that bubble to the surface of my murky brain take me back to my grandparents’ home on Southview Road in Louisville, Kentucky.

It was a ranch-style house with a sweeping front lawn and big picture window in the living room. I spent hours on the sofa neatly tucked in front of that window watching the lightning storms in the summer and the snow storms in the winter.

It was also the place where I took naps with my grandpa when he was home and not traveling for business. He’d stretch out there — all 6-feet, 2-inches of him — reading some detective novel and I’d play quietly on the floor nearby waiting for his breathing to change and the book to fall from his hands, signaling he was “snoozing.”

That’s when I’d very gently and quietly climb up, lay down on top of him and breathe him in. The mingling scents of tobacco and Old Spice and the gentle rise and fall of his broad, strong chest lulled me to sleep.

Sometimes I’d climb up on grandpa when he wasn’t asleep just to be with him. And that’s where I was, watching the Wonderful World of Disney, when I overheard a conversation between my grandma and my mom that sent chills down my 5-year-old spine.

I wasn’t really paying attention but when I heard my grandmother’s voice from the kitchen asking my mom, “What do you think about getting The Baby a P-O-N-Y for Christmas?” I nearly fell off my perch.

I knew they didn’t think I could hear them and for sure they didn’t know I could spell.

“A P-O-N-Y?” asked my mom.

“Yes, I think that would be wonderful,” said my grandmother.

As soon as I heard grandma say “wonderful” I knew I was “a goner.” I just knew come Christmas morning there would be a perfect white pony with a flowing mane and tail standing on the front lawn waiting for me, and I couldn’t imagine anything worse.

I was so horrified at the thought that I completely lost track of the plot line of “A Country Coyote Goes Hollywood.” I blanked out. Everything went dark, except for the vivid image of that perfect white pony with hooves and teeth and a mind of its own. Now maybe I was the only little girl ever who did not want a P-O-N-Y but I didn’t. Not even a little bit. I was absolutely petrified of them and just the thought of having one of my own made my stomach churn.

I didn’t really regain my cognitive abilities until Ed came on the TV announcing “It’s a really big shoe tonight,” and mom came in to get me for bed.

Over the course of the next week or so there were many more conversations among the loving but completely clueless adults in my life — mom, grandma, grandpa and Uncle Jim — about “getting The Baby a P-O-N-Y for Christmas.” They were the seven scariest words in the English language anyone had ever strung together. And each time I heard them, my terror grew exponentially.

I fervently prayed to God, Baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the Wise Men, the Angel of the Lord, Santa, Mrs. Claus, the elves, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph. (Hey! I was 5 and covering all my bases.) I prayed to them for “please, oh please, oh pretty please with sugar on top — no pony.”

I prayed for an Easy Bake Oven and a mink coat. (Yes, a mink coat. I might have been 5, but I was already my Aunt Pearl’s little princess.)

But no amount of praying did any good. The conversations continued and P-O-N-Y was not replaced by E-A-S-Y B-A-K-E O-V-E-N or M-I-N-K C-O-A-T.

I stopped eating. I refused to go outside and play. No one knew what was wrong with me, and I was too scared to admit that I knew what they were up to because, at 5, I thought I would get in trouble for hearing something I wasn’t supposed to; for ruining their surprise; and for being the only little girl ever born who did not want a P-O-N-Y for Christmas. And that feeling this way just confirmed my “weird-o-ness.”

Then one evening at the dinner table, where I sat with my untouched plate of spaghetti getting cold, my grandma asked again, “Baby what’s the matter? You won’t eat. You won’t play. What’s wrong?”

I looked around at the four adults who loved me most in the world and I just couldn’t hold it in any more.

I burst into tears and wailed, “Please don’t get me a P-O-N-Y for Christmas! Please don’t! I don’t want a P-O-N-Y! I’ll be a good a girl. I won’t be naughty ever, ever again. Please don’t make me have a P-O-N-Y for Christmas.”

There was, as you can imagine, a moment of stunned silence. A moment when I thought I was going to be put up for adoption. A moment when the adults were absorbing the fact that I could spell and the fact that every little girl’s dream was in fact my worst nightmare.

I didn’t wait for the moment to end in what would surely be my demise. I jumped up from the table and ran to hide in the furthest corner possible under my bed.

I refused to come out until my grandma crawled under the bed with me, cuddled up to me and, as best she could, put her arms around me and promised me that I would never, ever, ever get a P-O-N-Y for Christmas. On their hands and knees peering under the bed Uncle Jim, grandpa and mom echoed the promise.

It was the best Christmas-wish-come-true ever. Well that and the brand-new Easy Bake Oven which grandma helped me bake many cakes in that I gleefully served to mom, grandpa and Uncle Jim while dressed up in her mink coat.

Reach Kyra Gottesman at kgottesman@chicoer.com