Sometimes we chose a family with a very special need. Maybe it was a lonely widow. Or someone fighting sickness, like you, or sadness, or both.
I remember one year when John chose a family
who didn’t seem to need anything at all. They looked to have everything you could ever want. But something
told John that they needed the experience. I think he was right.
Every year was a little different, and the Traveling Elves always had a twist on where each verse of the song came from. John was such a storyteller. Your dad reminds me of him.
Of course, we had the very same deal. John wrote the first twelve days, with my help when he needed it, and I also helped with the gifts to go along with the verses. But the 13th Day was always mine to write.
I’m so happy that I get to write this 13th Day of Christmas to you, Charlee Alexander. I said that it wasn’t my first, but it’s probably my last. I could not think of anyone I’d rather share the 13th Day with more than
you.
The others have been so fun, haven’t they? They’ve lifted your spirits, and mine, too! They have been silly, unbelievable tales to put some magic in the days that led to Christmas.
But today, Charlee, this 13th Day of Christmas, isn’t about donuts, caramels, or plastic parachuting men. It’s more than that.
It’s sacred.
I know you’re young and that word—sacred—and this letter will not mean the same today that it will mean next year, or the year after, or even when you’re old and saying good-bye, like me. So don’t you worry that it doesn’t all make sense yet, sweet Charlee. In time, it will. The letter will grow with you, and everyone you share it with.
So what is the 13th Day of Christmas? Why does it come on December 26th?
It’s actually quite simple, Charlee. The world spends all year racing to Christmas, racing to gifts, trees, lights, and treats. These are good things, they are important traditions, and they add color and meaning to the season. Just like the first 12 Days, that shiny side of Christmas is something to cherish.
But if that’s all we have, we’re missing something, Charlee, aren’t we? We’re missing the most valuable lesson of all. What good is remembering His birth if we don’t remember His life? His birth wasn’t the end. It was the beginning!
Charlee, I know it’s been a difficult year for you in many ways. And I also know that it’s not over yet and that challenges still remain.
But please know, Charlee, that Heavenly Father and His Son love you. I know this is true. I know they are aware of you. They know your needs and hear your prayers.
My! How they are proud of you! You’ve met your trials with faith and hope!
This Christmas, I wish for your family to know that there is a plan for you, a way Home, and it starts with how all of us live our lives on December 26th.
Charlee, the greatest gift I have is knowing that He is waiting for me. If I die today, I know He will be there. But I don’t have to see Him to know that.
Finally, Charlee, please remember that on the good days and the bad days, you are loved.
When your family is upset or when there isn’t enough money, or food, or hugs, you are loved.
He wants you to know that.
And I want you to know that, too.
Charlee, this is the 13th Day of Christmas.
Love forever,
Miss Marva
P.S.: Next Christmas, there is something waiting for you behind the last door on the Advent calendar. It is my most prized possession, and I want you to have it.
Charlee carefully returned the letter to its envelope and stared at her name on the front. Behind her, Zach’s footsteps began as a soft, off-rhythm drumbeat and became louder and steadier as he moved up the hallway. She turned to face him when the sound stopped, and when she saw Zach’s cheeks, drenched with tears, she knew Miss Marva Ferguson was living the 13th Day of Christmas with Him.
30
One Year Later
Charlee crouched behind the overgrown bushes that supported the mailbox. She held an envelope marked The 1st Day of Christmas and a fountain pen made from a turkey feather. Inside the envelope, a letter explained that the feather was actually from a partridge, and that an invisible pear tree would be delivered overnight.
No one had ever come clean about last year’s 13 Days of Christmas, but when Charlee asked her mother, Emily had pinkie-sworn that she’d had nothing to do with it. So Charlee suspected the men in her life, led by her father, had somehow pulled it off. Once, when she asked new family friend, Rusty Cleveland, if he knew anything about it, he zipped his lips shut and changed the subject.
Charlee already knew that Marva had planted the idea, of course, and had asked to remain at a distance. She’d provided money and moral support for the gifts, but Charlee believed she’d not read a single letter before delivery. It tickled her to know that when Charlee read them over their walkie-talkies, Marva was really hearing them for the first and only time.
The Alexanders were proud to carry on the tradition, writing new, whimsical letters and leaving them each night for the lone remaining porch waver who still lived on the bend in 27 Homes. Her two dear friends had died earlier that year, and her loneliness was as clear as the two empty chairs on either side of her.
Night by night, beginning on December 14, Zach and Charlie would leave the letters and gifts on her porch, knock, and then race each other down the street and into the darkness. When the coast was clear, they would glide through the night, past the trailer that used to be theirs, and into their new home.
Even then, months after everything had been finalized, Charlee still couldn’t believe that Miss Marva’s house was theirs. Marva had left Rusty her prized Miata and his choice of aprons from her collection. She’d also left a small cash gift for the Woodbrook Library and the Woodbrook Mercy Hospital. A handful of Miss Marva’s volunteer friends were given their choice of aprons, too. Each had tearfully sorted through the pegs and hooks and picked one that had special meaning.
Despite her best intentions to pay tribute to Miss Marva’s clothesline memories, Charlee’s mother soon purchased a new washer and dryer. But in a nod to their generous friend, the family continued to wash Miss Marva’s aprons by hand and hang them on the clothesline that stood as a memorial.
Miss Marva had been buried by her husband at a cemetery on the other side of Woodbrook. Charlee and her family visited occasionally, but they all agreed they felt closer to her when they stood at the clothesline in the fresh air and hung her aprons to dry by the hand of heaven.
Miss Marva had another surprise. Not only had she left the home mortgage-free to Charlee and her family, she’d also secretly arranged for every nickel of Charlee’s bills at the hospital to be paid for as long as she needed treatment. One year had passed since her diagnosis, and Charlee was cancer free.
Charlee and her family knew it could return anytime, anyplace. They’d seen the numbers, understood the risks, and had attended three funerals that year for other children who’d lost their own battles. But Charlee also knew that if she died one day, if she met God face-to-face, her faith in Him wouldn’t be any stronger than it already was.
On December 26, Charlee would share that faith on a piece of paper and deliver it. She would testify that while Christmas was important, the most divine day of the year was the day after.
The day to recommit to living a life more like His.
The day to proclaim to the world that while His birth brought hope, His life brought the model.
The day to believe that He lives, that He loves everyone, and that He wants every porch waver, rock pile climber, cancer patient, and troublemaker to come Home again.
The 13th Day of Christmas.
Epilogue
December 26
Charlee had hardly slept. Yes, Christmas Day had been exciting. It was everything Charlee ha
d ever dreamed of in their new home. They’d gotten a few gifts, had dinner with Rusty, and secretly delivered the 12th Day of Christmas gift without any hiccups.
Still, as wonderful as the day had been, Charlee couldn’t wait to jump from bed and open the final day on the Advent calendar that hadn’t moved from the mantel all year. She’d been tempted to open it many times since Miss Marva’s death, to peek inside and see what magic—seen or unseen awaited—but she’d honored her best friend’s wish that she wait.
Charlee also couldn’t wait to pass along the magic of Day 13. She knew that opening the small red door would unlock the day and usher in the reminder of what it all meant. She didn’t know exactly what she’d find, if anything at all, but she knew Miss Marva would be watching.
Charlee tiptoed down the hallway from her bedroom in the dawn light. She walked through the living room to the pantry and picked an apron for the morning, just the way Marva would have. She went with one of Marva’s favorites. In curly cursive, a screen-printed message on the front of the apron boasted If life gives you lemons, throw them through the candy shop window and grab some taffy.
The apron made her smile.
She inched into the living room and approached the mantel reverently, like a child at a church altar. Charlee paused a minute, took a deep breath, and pulled the golden knob on the only closed door on the calendar: 26.
Instead of an empty tomb, she found a faded, folded piece of white paper. It was creased four times so it would fit in the calendar’s small compartment.
Charlee opened it and recognized Miss Marva’s handwriting in the upper right-hand corner. She’d scribbled the words Received on December 26, 1970.
Charlee sat on the couch and read the letter for the first of many times in her life. When she was done, she retrieved Miss Marva’s letter about the 13th Day of Christmas and read it again.
And with each new year, as she passed from girl to teen to woman, she read both letters often, and she discovered that Miss Marva was right: the letter’s rich meaning grew right alongside her.
Dear Mom and Dad,
It’s been too long since you’ve gotten a letter. I apologize for that. It’s been a difficult month here. I hope you get this before Christmas, but I guess it doesn’t really matter.
I’d wanted to write all last week, but I couldn’t find the time or a quiet place. It’s early morning, and I’m writing this from the trees, not far from the front. We’re camped on the edge of a green field, and the fog is lifting from it like it’s afraid of the day.
Lately I have learned something about myself. I think losing a few guys has really changed me.
It took a while—a long while—but I’m not afraid to fight anymore, and I think it’s made me a better soldier. I’m also not afraid to die, and that’s made me a much better man.
Sometimes I see you guys in everything. The sky, the jungle, the faces of my friends. But I know that even though I cannot see you, you’re still there.
I’ve never really thought of it before, but isn’t that what you taught me about God? I’ve never seen Him, but I know He’s there.
Who knows what awaits me today, or any day. I want you to know that if I don’t make it across this field, if I am to see God tonight, He will be no more real than He is right now.
I wish I could send you a gift, something special to open on Christmas. One day I’ll hug you both and maybe that will be a gift to all of us, right? Until then, I guess this letter is my gift to you.
Mom and Dad, because of you, I believe in God.
Because it’s Christmas, I’ve been thinking more than usual about what you taught me, about how God sent His Son to be born in a manger, to live, to teach, to die, and to be born again, resurrected, for us. I know that’s true.
I’ve been thinking how I used to count down to the big day. We would try so hard to think of Jesus, but we knew the traps. We knew that the meaning of Christmas can become lost in the ripped wrapping paper on the floor.
So we try to remember Him. On Christmas Eve, Dad would read His story from Luke in the New Testament. We felt good about ourselves that we’d worked so hard to remember that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus.
Then what?
On December 26th, we return the clothes that didn’t fit, and we begin to put Christmas back in the box. In the basement. Or by the curb. We mark the day off the calendar and prepare for the next holiday and the chance to ring in the New Year. What a shame that the day after Christmas just might be the least memorable day of the year.
I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter how I’m living my life today, or tomorrow, or on Christmas Day, or how much I remember Him and His birth, if I don’t wake up a different man on December 26.
Isn’t that what He wants?
Not to simply celebrate Jesus’ birth on one day, but to celebrate His life by living like Him the other 364?
Do we worship the infant for a day, but not the man and His teachings all year long?
Do we put Him away with the decorations?
Or do we try to be more like Him?
That’s my Christmas gift to you. I hope you get this by Christmas, but if you don’t, think of me on the day after.
Now that I’ve reread this letter, I’d say December 26 might be my new favorite day of the year. I guess you could call that the 13th Day of Christmas.
Please enjoy my gift. It’s the most valuable thing I have: December 26th.
Love,
J.R.
Author’s Note
In my family, the tradition of the 12 Days of Christmas has a long history. As children, my siblings and I watched our father conjure up incredible stories of mysterious elves doing good for those in need. Each story was accompanied by a clever gift and left in secret on the target’s doorstep. The stories were never the same year to year, and the gifts ranged from the obvious to the absurd. Some took a few minutes to assemble; others took hours.
The concept of the 13th Day was not part of our family tradition, but I think if my father were alive today, this is exactly where the tradition would have evolved. He had extraordinary faith in Christ, and he knew that the gifts and stories were fun, but that the only true and lasting joy of the holiday came from living a life more like the Savior’s.
You may feel inspired to write your own fun, whimsical verses and leave gifts with a family in need this holiday season. If you’re so inclined, please visit www.the13thdayofchristmas
.com for suggestions, templates, and other free information that might help you.
If you choose not to embark on the full 13 Days project, please consider sharing the simple 13th Day concept this year with people in your life. In a note, perhaps you might share what the day means to you and the essence of your personal faith. In a troubled world, testifying of Him and His love for each of us is the most valuable gift you can give this Christmas, and it’s a gift that grows the more we give it.
Leave your note by itself on a doorstep or in a mailbox or accompanied with your favorite holiday treat. Better still, look the recipient of your 13th Day gift in the eye and hand your note to them with a heartfelt expression of love.
Finally, never forget that He stands ready to carry your burdens, if you only let Him.
Happy 13th Day of Christmas.
Jason Wright
The 13th Day of Christmas Page 16
