I sighed. I was homesick and felt more than a little sorry for myself. I longed for the cold, the smell of pine, and the magic of Christmases past.
Then, as a warm breeze drifted through the open windows, I thought I heard music. I held my breath and listened more closely. It sounded like Christmas carols.
But here in India?
The music grew louder as I rushed through the apartment to the front balcony. In the courtyard below, lit by the splashing fountain and surrounded by flowers, a dozen people were singing carols. They wore colorful cotton saris and sandals instead of woolen coats and boots. They probably had never felt the chill of a bitter, winter wind and, even more likely, had probably never seen snow. But their voices rose in harmony to where I stood, filling the air with the comfort of the familiar songs of “Silent Night,” “Jingle Bells,” and finally, “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.”
I never found out where they came from, and I doubt they ever knew the difference their singing made, but on that hot December night, they brought a special gift— they returned Christmas to a lonely fifteen-year-old far away from home.
Michele Ivy Davis
The Doll in Burgundy Twill
What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow, with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace.
Agnes M. Pharo
We had a tree that year—smaller than usual, from the back of the tree lot. But it was our Christmas tree. My three younger sisters and I helped Mom lug it home through the snow-crusted streets of our south Philadelphia neighborhood.
Even though I was mature for a ten-year-old, I had no idea of the reality of our situation. School was out for Christmas vacation—two weeks of pure childhood pleasure: baking sugar cookies, playing in the snow, starry-eyed daydreaming of Christmas presents, and the New Year’s celebration at Grandmom’s house.
We hadn’t seen or heard from Daddy in months. After three years of being in and out of our lives, he’d finally left for good. At ten, you don’t realize how big the hole in your heart is from abandonment. But you do feel the emptiness even though the house is inhabited by four chatty, arguing, giggling little girls and their devoted mother.
Mom stood the tree in its stand and set out the boxes of ornaments.
“I want a Betsy Wetsy doll,” Tootsie, my three-year-old sister, said.
“I want roller skates,” six-year-old Diane piped up.
“A bike,” Rosanne said. She would turn eight in just a month.
“You know the city isn’t a good place for bike riding,”
Mom said. “It’s too dangerous. Here. Hang this gold ball, honey.”
“What do you want, Mom?” I asked, hoping she would say Evening in Paris cologne. I’d saved up the dimes I had earned helping Aunt Rosie with chores and bought the blue-bottled set of talc and cologne at Sun Ray Drugs a week earlier. I couldn’t wait for Mom to open it.
“I have everything I want,” Mom smiled. “I have four beautiful daughters.”
The tree turned out to be as lovely as we had hoped.
The bubble lights, sparkling glass balls, and silver tinsel filled in the empty spaces between branches. On Christmas Eve, we hopped into bed, anxious for morning to come. Toots and Diane listened for hooves on the rooftop of our three-story brick row home. Eventually, we all talked ourselves to sleep.
“Get up! Get up! It’s Christmas!” Diane shook us and ran into Mom’s room while the first rays of winter sunshine still slept below the horizon.
“Wait here until I put the tree lights on,” Mom instructed, pulling on her chenille robe. Everything had to be just right.
We stood at the top of the stairs in slippers and flannel pajamas until we got the okay, then down the steps we bounded. One at a time, Mom handed out the gifts— wrapped packages of underwear (of course) for everybody, our own socks stuffed with oranges and nuts, and one special present each. With delight, I held the doll dressed in a rich burgundy twill coat and hat.
“Oh, Mom, she’s beautiful,” I said.
“Don’t you recognize her?” Mom asked.
Puzzled, I shook my head.
“It’s your old doll. I made her a new outfit.”
I looked at the peaches-and-cream face with blue glass eyes. It was, indeed, my old doll all dressed up. Her new attire made her look brand-new.
“Mom, I love it!”
Tootsie’s old doll rested in a mushroom-box bassinet outfitted with handmade bedding. Rosanne and Diane opened similar presents. As I watched, a deeper understanding of our circumstances grew, and a deeper respect for Mom grew along with it. I beamed when she oohed and aahed over the Evening in Paris, filled with joy that I could bless her with something special.
That was many years ago. Mom is at home with the Lord, and I’m a grandma now. But as I look back at all the Christmases that have come and gone, this special one stands out above the rest. I realize now how brokenhearted my mother must have been when her little girls voiced their Christmas wishes. How she must have wracked her brain to come up with suitable gifts for each child at little or no cost.
I never told her. Now I wish I had. But the old doll dressed in handcrafted, love-inspired burgundy twill is the gift I will always remember most.
Emily King
God and Santa
“Rachel’s lost her doll,” Dody told the Bible study group one evening. “Would you guys pray about it?”
Rachel’s doll had been inherited from her older sisters, a Christmas present several years before. Now, at six, Rachel carried Abby everywhere except to kindergarten. She slept with Abby, talked to Abby, and explained things to Abby. Rachel was especially impressed by the fact that this particular Cabbage Patch doll had hair the same color and style as hers and had a particularly nice expression.
The family—Daddy, Mommy, Rachel, and, of course, Abby—dined out one evening. They were halfway home when a cry sounded from the backseat.
“Daddy! You have to go back! Abby’s not here!”
Dody phoned the restaurant and described the doll and where they had been sitting. The manager was friendly, but no one had turned in a doll.
Rachel cried herself to sleep that night.
After sending her red-eyed little girl off to school, Dody drove back to the restaurant, even crawling under the table to be sure. No Abby.
“Rachel is positive Santa will give Abby back to her this Christmas,” Dody told us. “But I’ve checked in all the toy stores. They don’t make the dolls with that color hair anymore! Bob went online, hoping to buy one. I told Rachel that Santa might give her another doll, a different one. But she is positive that she will get her ‘real’ Abby.”
Dody sighed.
I asked why Rachel knew she’d get Abby back, and Dody told me she had prayed about it. “‘God answers prayers, right, Mommy?’ she told me. We’ve talked about how sometimes God says no, but she is convinced God and Santa will return Abby to her. So, would you all pray about this? And if you know anyone with a Cabbage Patch doll with long, brown hair. . . .”
“Good morning, Mom!”
“G’morning, dear!” Sue returned her daughter’s kiss, gave the eggs one last stir, and handed her a plate.
“Bacon’s in the oven.”
“Thanks, Mom!”
“I was just thinking,” Sue said slowly, “about your dolls.”
“My dolls?” Ricki laughed. “Come on, Mom! I’m in high school and don’t play with dolls anymore.”
“What did you do with your dolls?” her mother asked.
“Well, I wanted to give them away,” Ricki said, “but you wanted me to keep them. So they’re all in boxes, in the back of the closet downstairs. Why?”
“Rachel lost her doll.” Sue told her the story. “Didn’t you have one with brown hair?”
“Yep!” Ricki recalled. “I think I do have that doll! I’ve gotta run, Mom, but would you c
heck? That would be so neat!”
Ricki set her plate in the sink, kissed her mother goodbye, and headed out, giving one last wave as her convertible turned out of the driveway.
Sue finished her own breakfast more slowly, then went downstairs to look for those dolls.
“Mommy, look!”
Dody had been picking up bits of ribbon and wrapping paper, waiting for her daughter to get to that one special package under the tree.
“Look!” Rachel called again. “It’s Abby! Oh, Abby, I’ve missed you so! Why did you go away so long?”
She cradled the doll in her arms, her face aglow.
“I told you Santa would give her back to me!” Rachel ran to her mother to display the precious toy. “’Cause I asked God to tell him to.”
“Thank you, God!” She hugged the doll close. “Thanks for letting Santa give Abby back to me!”
Rachel spun around a couple of times, then held Abby at arms’ length to admire her.
“You’ve got a new dress,” she announced. “And,Mommy, while Abby was gone, visiting Santa, she grew a tooth!
Mommy, this is the best Christmas ever!”
* * * “That was the best Christmas,” Dody told us at Bible study a few weeks later. “Loss is part of life, so she could have dealt with never seeing Abby again. But she was so confident that God was going to help her! I didn’t want that faith shaken.”
She looked over at Sue and smiled.
“I can’t thank you enough,” she said. “It was so nice of Ricki to give Rachel her doll!”
“Ricki loves Rachel,” Sue said, “and she had fun dressing the doll for her and sneaking it to you for Christmas. Isn’t it funny that we would have the exact doll you needed?”
“That’s not funny,” someone said. “That’s grace!”
A few years passed. Rachel was in second grade, still sleeping with Abby. Ricki was starting college. Dody invited Sue and Ricki over for supper one night.
“I liked the pie,” Rachel agreed. “Ricki, Mommy said you gave me Abby back. Will you tell me the story?”
“How did you lose Abby in the first place?” Ricki asked when they were seated in the living room, with the fire crackling quietly.
“We were at the restaurant, eating french fries,” Rachel explained. “Abby was sitting in the corner. But when we got home, she wasn’t there! Then, on Christmas, there she was, with a tooth!”
Everyone laughed.
“We wrote our phone number under her head, see? So she’d never get lost again,” Rachel went on, her doll securely in her lap. “Was Abby your special doll?”
“No, but I had another doll I loved best. When I saw you after Christmas, you told me all about how Santa had given Abby back to you! It was neat to see my old doll being used again. That was fun for me and made it a special Christmas!”
Rachel leaned over to kiss Abby, then looked up. “It was a good Christmas when I got Abby. And a really good Christmas when I got her back! But, you know something? It’s the best Christmas to know that God knew Ricki had my doll and answered my prayer!”
Rachel gave Ricki a big hug, and both girls beamed at Abby, loved and safe in Rachel’s arms.
Elsi Dodge
The Twelve Days of Christmas
To give and then not to feel that one has given is the very best of all ways of giving.
Max Beerbohm
It was Christmas. The snow that gently hugged the tips of the mountains and the farolitos (paper lanterns) that graced the homes and business establishments in the desert Southwest told me so. But it was not Christmas in my heart. My children were busy with their holiday parties, and simply baking the perfunctory cookies for them was a massive chore. You see, tragedy had struck our family just four months earlier by way of the untimely and sad death of my oldest daughter, Kristen.
Much to my surprise, life proceeded, albeit on a surreal level. How would I get through the holidays? How could I be strong for my family?
Christmas was just two weeks away, and my parents decided to fly out and join us. They had not weathered the death of their grandchild well. It was good that we would all be together for this holiday. Little did we know what was about to happen to us on that holiday.
It was a quiet night. The lights of Albuquerque sparkled below us, and I had just finished playing Christmas songs on my piano when the front doorbell chimed. My son, Nick, was quick to see who had come to visit us this late.
“What in the world?” he exclaimed. “There is no one here.”
My daughter, Kate, ran to the door and gasped in surprise. Sitting on the front porch was a beautiful white candle covered in a glass dome. The fire of the candle danced merrily, and we quickly brought it inside. How nice! Who could have given us such a nice present? Why didn’t they stay so that we could thank them? So many questions!
The following night, after a particularly stressful day, we once again heard the sound of the doorbell. The children laughed merrily. This time, a basket of freshly baked ginger cookies was left for us. They were still warm and covered with a clean red-checkered dishtowel. Nick quickly ran out onto the porch and into the driveway. No one was there.
What was going on? Who could be doing this? And how could they disappear so quickly without a trace into the night?
On the third night, we waited with anticipation. Nick had a plan that he felt would be foolproof. He would be ready this time if the doorbell rang. He camped out in the foyer, directly in front of the door. Sure enough, this time, there came a knock. Before anyone had a chance to respond, Nick swung open the door. However, much to his chagrin, he wasn’t fast enough. Nestled among delicate green foil were two crystal tree ornaments. They were filled with a fragrant, spicy potpourri. We immediately placed them in a prominent location on our Christmas tree. This was fun! My father’s eyes sparkled with life, and my mother’s face was lit with a happy smile. How wonderful! Someone was playing the “Twelve Days of Christmas” on us. But who? Who could be doing such a wonderful thing?
The fourth night arrived, accompanied by a storm.Wind and snow lapped against our windows with a fury, and we were certain we would not receive a visit from our Christmas Ghost on such a dreary and cold night. We were wrong! Right on schedule, the front door rattled with a knock, and this time, two tiny, wooden angels with starched lace wings were left behind for us to behold. The children ran to the end of the porch. Nothing could be seen, not even a footprint in the snow. Such a mystery!
On the fifth, sixth, and seventh nights, we received tall, honey wax candles, a nut bread bursting with cherries and almonds, and a tiny nutcracker carved from clothespins and held together with pipe cleaners, Now it was time to get down to serious business. Our curiosity was piqued. We simply had to know our mystery benefactor.
“No,” said my father. “Whoever it is does not want to be seen, and it is our responsibility to keep it that way. This is part of the gift. This angel is also receiving a gift, the pure and obvious joy of giving, secure in the knowledge that he or she is bringing joy to this family at a very difficult time.”
He, of course, was right.
On the eighth night, we waited. No one came.
Disappointed and tired, we went to bed. We had come to look forward to our nocturnal visits and now wondered why they had stopped. Morning dawned brightly, and when my husband stepped outside to retrieve his paper, lo and behold! On our threshold were two gifts: a red poinsettia, and a lovely Christmas cactus that was preparing to bloom. Our friend had truly caught us off guard this time. Indeed, our eighth and ninth day gifts had been quietly left outside our door sometime during the night.
On the tenth night, we received an apple pie, steaming hot and carefully wrapped in red and green napkins. On the eleventh day, brown and white handmade coasters made of cardboard and lined with satin ribbon were left. So lovely!
Christmas Eve was upon us, and it had happened so quickly that we forgot our sad spirit. Our sweet angel had taken our minds from our loss and had tre
ated us to a very different kind of Christmas. It was one that we had never anticipated. Each night, the children had run outside in a vain effort to catch a glimpse of our benevolent friends, and yet, on the twelfth night, we still had no idea who had so diligently and kindly bestowed us with its sweet blessings.
On the twelfth day—Christmas Day—we sat in the living room. All of our gifts had been exchanged, and we had enjoyed a quiet family dinner. It had been a good Christmas, after all, loving and joyous. Then, as usual, the front doorbell rang. Right on cue, our secret Santa disappeared into the night, leaving behind a small white envelope. Upon opening it, we found that our twelfth Christmas gift was a message, neatly written in a child’s hand. It read:
I am the spirit of Christmas
Which is PEACE
I am the spirit of gladness—HOPE
I am the heart of Christmas, which is LOVE
Have a Merry Christmas!
We were changed from that night on. We began to heal. Going on with our lives seemed a bit easier. We never knew who left all of those wonderful gifts. We did, however, divine the “Spirit of Christmas” and how important it is to take the time for friends. We learned how essential it is to bring a bit of sunshine into a dark place, not simply at Christmas, but all year through.
Janet K. Brennan
The Gift of Normandy Beach
Christmas is not a date.
It is a state of mind.
Mary Ellen Chase
It was our last day in Paris. Instead of touring the Eiffel Tower or admiring the Mona Lisa, my husband and I were careening down dark alleys. With a lurch, the minivan merged with the northbound stream of traffic for a two-and-a-half-hour drive to the sea.
This tour was an afterthought. The day before, I had noticed a brochure in the hotel lobby advertising a complete tour of the D-Day invasion. Tim’s dad and uncle had both been at D-Day. I thought this would be something special for him. Since the excursion was offered only once a week, we had to act quickly.
Chicken Soup for the Soul Christmas Page 9
