How My Heart Finds Christmas

by Gail MacMillan

  Hands clutched tightly to her hips as she described the results of my present, my twenty-year-old daughter stood in my office doorway a week after Christmas. Although I didn’t immediately catch the significance of the event, later I’d realize that here yet again was another incident that would be added to my collection of Yuletide remembrances.

  “But the gift certificate was supposed to be for a facial,” I defended my good intentions. “Of course, there was just a tiny language problem…the sales lady didn’t speak very much English…and I thought it was rather expensive.”

  “For a facial, yes. For a complete body massage, no.”

  So much for Good Intention Number One I thought a bit ruefully after she’d gone. Oh, well, one down, three to go. My other unique gifts had to be hits with their recipients.

  My burst of originality occurred several Christmases ago when, struck by a sudden desire to give absolutely unforgettable gifts, I had abandoned my usual offerings of sweaters, socks, books, and chocolates.

  I started my quest with my eldest daughter. For over a year, she’d been longing to have a facial but being a university student, the treatment was beyond her financial means. So viola! A gift certificate from one at the most exclusive spas in town. Unfortunately, there’d apparently been some sort of mix-up, a minor misunderstanding, and so, the above scene had occurred one morning early in January.

  I heaved a sigh as Joan left my office and comforted myself that my other one-off gifts had to meet with more success. I felt a nice, warm glow as I thought of the present I’d given to second daughter, nineteen-year-old Carol.

  As a child, Carol had longed for a pony, then a horse, then riding lessons. Since none of these had been financially possible at the time, I’d determined that now, at least part of her dream should come true. A week before Christmas, I called a local stable and signed her up for a series of riding lessons.

  But once again, misadventure was to dog my best intentions.

  “Mom, the horse laid down! The minute I got onto its back, it laid down!” Carol’s voice reached new heights in decibels when she called me from the riding academy. “Then it jumped to its feet and took off like a bat out of you-know-where! My entire life flashed in front of my eyes! I thought I was going to die!”

  No, no, no! Horses don’t fall down, then leap up into full flight.

  “Perhaps you’ve put on some weight, dear, and that’s why he fell down,” I countered lamely. “It is just after Christmas and all those goodies…”

  “I don’t think so, Mom,” my 119-pound daughter replied sarcastically.

  Ah, well, c’est la vive. Carol had had a taste of her dream and survived to tell about it. My description of an adventure. Two gifts down and two certain-to-be-a-hit ones left to go.

  Autumn came. The leaves tumbled to the ground but not my optimism. My husband, as usual, geared up for duck hunting season. This year he was especially well-equipped right down to a brand new (if a bit green-trained) retriever and an extraordinary safety device I’d given him for Christmas.

  Basically it was a flashlight but it also contained a siren and a flashing police-type light to be snapped on in case of emergency…a wonderful device for a man who had the frequent (and unnerving for me) habit of hunting alone. Pushing the memory of the results of my previous two Christmas debacles aside, I watched him drive off on the first day of the season, dog and light beside him, a satisfied little smile on my lips.

  “I may as well have taken a brass band!” my husband exploded a trifle incoherently when he returned that night.

  When I was finally able to draw articulate speech from him, the appallingly amazing story came out in a rush.

  Apparently the new (and green) aforesaid canine had managed to dart ahead of him as he was sneaking stealthily into his duck blind. Stumbling, my husband had simultaneously pushed two buttons forward on that remarkable safety device. Instantly siren and flashing lights had exploded into action.

  Ducks had risen screaming into the clear morning sky for “miles around.” A poacher who’d been hiding nearby had fled past the unfortunate pair, apparently convinced that the entire local detachment of RCMP was closing in on him.

  At this point, I admit becoming a tad discouraged with my gift ideas. Then I remembered what I’d given my son. And panicked. He’d recently left Banff, Alberta to drive back home to the Maritimes. I’d given him a compass-watch to facilitate his journey. He’d left four days previous. Would I shortly be getting a call from Yellowknife or Dallas to say that gift, too, had proven an adventure?

  “Mom.” I held my breath as I recognized my son’s voice on the phone.

  “Hi, Steve.” I paused, then ventured, “Where are you?”

  “At the New Brunswick border,” he replied cheerfully. “I’ll be home in a couple of hours. The compass-watch works great…even gives a pretty accurate ETA. See you soon, Mom. And thanks.”

  I hung up the phone, a small sigh of vindication and relief easing from my lips. One out of four isn’t that bad I tried to console myself. But the following Christmas, I reverted to sweaters, socks, books, and chocolates. Just to be on the safe side.

  Enough with this kind of memory making!

  It’s the Christmas Beagle, Charlie Brown!

  Christmas is a season of mysterious, often miraculous events. At least that’s how I’ve come to explain the arrival of a new and totally unexpected family member several Yuletides ago.

  I can’t deny my part in the event. After all, this newcomer is a beagle and I do love those small rascals of the hound type. I can’t help it. Oh, I know they can be stubborn, hedonistic, exasperating, with an insatiable penchant to chase anything that moves and unrelentingly single-minded when it comes to getting their own way.

  They can also be funny, clever, loving, and totally endearing. These characteristics, in my opinion, make up for all of the preceding.

  They’re free thinkers, the Bohemians of the canine kingdom. Hippies that came to England with William the Conqueror, they’ve been spreading their doctrine of enjoying life to the fullest ever since.

  In modern times, beagles have inspired books and movies such as “Shiloh” and classic cartoons featuring the one and only Snoopy. Then, of course, there’s Kristin Von Kriesler’s moving book For Bea, the Beagle Who Changed My Life.

  A beagle changed my life as well. His name was Brandy. For more than sixteen years he inspired me, humbled me, amused me, horrified me, and loved me all in his own inimitable way.

  When Brandy first became a member of our family, I was a fledgling writer with a single not-best-selling novel to my credit. In fact, I purchased Brandy with the last of the meager advance I’d received for that book. We’d just lost our beloved dog, a beagle-mix named Ben. My children were grief-stricken. In an attempt to alleviate their sorrow, I said I’d find them a beagle puppy.

  At the time I’d never known a single purebred beagle outside of the cartoon Snoopy and had absolutely no knowledge of the unique, free-spirited being that lurked within the little tri-colored body. Or of the devilish Machiavellian brain that functioned between those gorgeous velvety ears.

  I soon found out.

  By the time he was three years old, Brandy had escaped my custody with sufficient frequency to have stolen food from most of our neighbors and chased their cats and horses to distraction. He’d disappeared for hours at a time in pursuit of rabbits (or any other wildlife he could startle into flight) and streaked through picnic dinners and weak-sided camping tents, apparently unconcerned about the chaos he created.

  He’d also stayed by my side during the most excruciatingly painful illness of my life and inspired me to begin a series of dog articles that later appeared in magazines from coast to coast both in the United States and Canada. Ultimately his death would prompt me to write an award-winning biography of his incredible life and develop a deep and abiding concern for beagle welfare worldwide.

  When he passed away at the ripe old age of sixteen, I was left wi
th a vast, unquenchable sense of pain and loss. I vowed that never again would I allow a beagle to entrench itself so deeply in my heart.

  Then, several Christmases ago, my daughter Joan and I volunteered to clean pens at the local SPCA. These kind people had just taken in two dozen refugees from a terrible puppy mill. Among them were several beagles.

  As I cleaned pens and refilled bowls, I tried to ignore the little hounds. Getting involved with them would only serve to stir up memories I wanted left alone. As I glanced in their direction and saw them leaping nearly to the top of the two-and-a-half meter-high pens, I knew they would be the hardest of the rescued dogs to place in good homes. It’s not everyone or every household that’s able to deal with a beagle’s high-spirited, free-wheeling exuberance.

  One beagle in particular, I felt certain, would have trouble finding a proper placement. She’d been confined in a lobster trap for the first nine months of her life. As she’d grown, she’d never been able to walk or even stand up. A bloody hole in her side bore bitter testament to where the cage’s steel had pierced her body. Of all the dogs that had survived that puppy mill, she’d suffered the most. No wonder she was especially wild. Even the limited freedom of her pen must have seemed like heaven to her.

  This basic lack of restriction must have inspired her. Two days previous, in a bid for even wider vistas, she’d managed to scramble over the top of her pen in the night. When the SPCA caregivers had arrived for work early the following morning, they’d found her sitting happily amid the utter chaos of overturned shelves and scattered supplies, tail wagging, eyes bright and eager.

  Now she was chained inside her cage, front paws braced against the wire, white-tipped tail wagging furiously as, head thrown back, she howled out her beagle cries above all the others. God help the kind soul who takes her on I sighed inwardly as I went to empty my bucket.

  When I returned to the kennel area minutes later, I froze. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My daughter sat on the floor of that beagle’s pen, the little hound cradled in her arms as it licked her face with joyous abandon.

  “This is my dog, Mom,” she said softly.

  This couldn’t be happening. Joan had always been a Labrador retriever fancier. In fact, we’d recently been surfing the web for breeders. Now, here she sat, holding one of the wildest beagles I’d ever encountered in her arms and declaring it hers.

  Something miraculous in tune with the Christmas season must have overwhelmed me. The following morning I found myself signing a joint adoption agreement that would give me shared responsibility with Joan for this, the wildest of beagles. The deal was I’d keep her during the day while Joan, a principal at a rural school, was at work.

  I could barely believe that another beagle was coming into my life as suddenly and as unexpectedly as that. Had Brandy, in his deviously relentless way, gotten through to me via my compassionate daughter? Was it perhaps his way of telling me it was time to move on, to share my life with another happy-go-lucky adventurer of his ilk? Perhaps Brandy, as he always had, was forcing me on to new experiences and, in doing so, to remember him with each hair-brained adventure into which this new beagle would take me.

  Or maybe it was just one of those inexplicably wondrous events that have a way of occurring at Christmas. Who knows? One can never be sure when dealing with a beagle.

  Joan named her Scout after Harper Lee’s memorable “To Kill a Mockingbird” character. Scout accompanies me to book signings and poses for pictures with as much perky enthusiasm as if it was her biography, not Brandy’s, she’s touting. Once again I’ve been seduced by beagle charms. I even managed to laugh the day she leaped aboard my tea wagon and rode it, skateboard fashion, across the living room.

  And each time I watch her racing full-speed around the perimeter of our fenced backyard, ears streaming out behind her head, wild with exhilaration in this semblance of freedom, I share the fullness of her delight and rejoice in it.

  Of course, she will chase anything that she can urge into flight and follow her nose into one incredible (and often dangerous) situation after another, but after each cavalier exploit, she climbs up onto my lap to plant a big, wet beagle kiss on my nose and snuggle close, the celebration of life that is the spirit of Christmas glowing from her heart.

  The Pug Who Came to Dinner

  This Christmas story has its beginning at our cottage in Tabusintac one beautiful evening in June last year. When I opened the door to call our dogs…Molly, the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, and Barbie-Q, the little no-name brand…for dinner, I recognized him immediately. New neighbors had moved in across the road two days earlier, and the Pug was part of their family. I’d seen him playing on the deck of their cottage. He looked up at me, big brown eyes round and appealing above the black mask that covered his snout, and wiggled his curly pig-tail.

  Beside me, Molly paused and looked up. I knew that expression. I glanced over at the neighbor’s cottage. No one was around.

  “Okay,” I answered Molly’s silent request. I looked down at the Pug. “Would you like to stay to dinner?” He wriggled his tail again, than pranced up the steps and past me.

  He proved to be an appreciative guest, his enjoyment of our doggy cuisine obvious as he burrowed his little black mouth deep into gravy-laced kibble. He even gave a lusty burp and licked his chops with gusto when he finished.

  “Bruiser! Bruiser, where are you?”

  He cocked his head on one side, then trotted to the full-length screen door and looked out, tail wiggling. His reaction left no doubt. He was Bruiser.

  I opened the door for him and followed him onto the deck.

  “He’s over here,” I called across the lane to the young woman in shorts and tank top. “He stayed to dinner.”

  “Thanks.” She jogged across the road as Bruiser rushed to greet her. She introduced herself as Nancy as she lifted his squirming body into her arms.

  “Bruiser’s an unusual name for a Pug,” I said, as she tucked him against her side.

  “I named him after the dog in the movie ‘Legally Blonde’,” she grinned. “Hope he wasn’t any trouble.” She waved and headed back across the road carrying the Pug.

  “Any time,” I called.

  The trouble began the next morning when Molly dashed out as usual to fetch the morning paper at the end of the drive. At the corner of our cedar hedge where the carrier normally tossed it, she stopped short. No paper.

  She lowered her nose and began a serious investigation of the area. After a few minutes of watching my dog’s unsuccessful attempts to find the daily news, I scuffled into my moccasins and went to help her.

  As I was opening the front door, I saw my new neighbor running across the road in slippers and PJs. She was waving something in a blue plastic sleeve. Under her left arm, Bruiser hung ignominiously.

  “Sorry,” she said as she ran up the steps. “Bruiser’s been watching your dog fetch the paper for the last couple of days. He must have thought it was a good idea, so he brought your paper to us.”

  “No problem,” I replied taking the paper and giving Bruiser a little head-pat. “Shows initiative, right, guy?” He licked my hand, snuffled a Pug sound and wriggled his tail.

  It’s been said you can’t outfox a fox. Molly soon proved that the cliché also applied to Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers. Bright and early the next morning, she posted herself on our front step. As I glanced out the front window, I saw a small, black-masked snout peering out from the hedge.

  I got my coffee and drew up a chair. This was going to be interesting.

  A few minutes later, the carrier’s car appeared over the crest of the knoll on the road above the cottage. Molly leaped to her paws, alert and ready. Half hidden behind cedar branches, a small amber fawn critter also came to attention.

  The car slowed at the end of our drive, an arm appeared through its open driver’s window, and the morning news flew through the air. Simultaneously (or so it appeared) both dogs lunged.

  The c
ollision occurred at the corner of the hedge. A yelp, a squeal and Bruiser was sent catapulting backwards into the bushes. Molly paused, glanced disdainfully at her competition, then picked up the paper and trotted back to the cottage, head held high; the obvious winner in this war for words.

  Bruiser had scrambled to his paws. He shook himself, paused a moment (I assume to make sure he was still intact), then proceeded to prance behind Molly toward our cottage.

  When I opened the screen door for Molly and accepted the paper she carefully presented “to hand,” Bruiser, his joie de vivre apparently unabashed, trotted inside behind her, the corners of his mouth curled up in a good-natured grin.

  The following morning, it bucketed rain and Molly opted to watch for the paper from the front window. Surely, she may have speculated, the Pug wouldn’t come out in such inclement weather for a fetch he must now know he couldn’t possibly hope to retrieve.

  Molly would soon learn never to underestimate the tenacity of a Pug.

  I’d gone back into the kitchen for a moment when I heard the carrier’s car approaching, and Molly’s excited whines.

  “No rush, girl,” I assured her as I headed toward the front door to let the now yelping, prancing dog out.

  Then I saw the reason for her distress. Bruiser had darted out of the hedge and lifted his leg. His aim perfect, he peed on her precious blue-sleeved paper.

  Two weeks later, Nancy crossed the road to ask a favor. She and her partner were going to visit non-dog-fancying relatives for a couple of weeks. Could we keep Bruiser?

  No problem Ron and I agreed. By then Bruiser had become a frequent and welcome visitor. Barbie-Q and Molly enjoyed him, and so did we. So the Pug who came to dinner gathered up his collar, leash, and bowl and moved in.

  “He’s housebroken and doesn’t chew things,” Nancy said as she placed him on the kitchen floor. “There are only a couple of tiny problems. He steals and he parties.”

  “Oh?” we replied in surprised unison although the former came as no surprise after the newspaper incidents. But as for partying… A Pug? Really!