For the Love of Christmas Read online

  Santa ho-ho-hoed. “Yes, I have been eating a lot of ­cookies. Tell your teacher to be sure and leave a door open for me tonight.”

  “We will Santa, we promise! We’ll leave the door open,” the children shouted in unison.

  Before the show began, I escorted Bill to a small back room where the red suit hung on a hook. My high heels clicked like reindeer hooves as I pranced away.

  “Wait,” he called. “Come back. There’s no ­mirror!”

  I had no time to assist him; a crowd of 300 waited. “When you hear us sing ‘Jingle Bells’ make your grand entrance.”

  Onstage, I situated the children and welcomed parents and grandparents as they took pictures. What a sight to behold!

  During the first song, a girl dressed in red velvet toppled backward from the twelve-inch riser where she sat. She landed in the blue velvet curtain like a piece of felt stuck to a flannel board. Her feet pointed straight up in the air. I interrupted the performance to upright her. “Santa’s coming. Santa’s coming, hop into bed!” We continued with another song. Little voices rang out and children hopped in place. One mischievous twin got carried away and continued hopping until his pants fell around his ankles. His hands flew to his mouth instead of his trousers and he giggled ­uncontrollably.

  “Pull your pants up!” his mother shouted as she ran onstage. When they hit his ankles a second time, both his mother and I nearly fainted.

  A few songs later, a baby made a wild dash from the crowd, climbed like a monkey onto the stage, and shrieked when I carried her off. I felt my blood pressure rise.

  After their last song, we all exited the stage. I hurried the students into the hallway to get ready for our grand finale.

  The audience oohed and aahed as all sixty children walked out wearing paper antlers and red sparkly noses. Videos zoomed in and cameras flashed as paper noses fell off toddlers when they did the “Reindeer Hokey-Pokey.” The auditorium rang with laughter, and the show concluded with a huge round of applause.

  In the pause that followed, all eyes swung toward me.

  “Santa will arrive as soon as we sing his favorite song,” I announced and led the children in “Jingle Bells.”

  A hush fell over the crowd; eager expectation filled the room; heads swiveled to search the doorway. But Santa did not appear.

  I encouraged them to sing again. Still no Santa.

  “He’s probably parking the sleigh,” I stalled. “Why don’t you parents sing along?”

  Voices rocked the room with a rousing rendition. Both adults and children looked confused when Santa still did not make his grand entrance. My heart palpitated; my deodorant quit working; my mouth went dry.

  Then it occurred to me that Santa is hard of hearing.

  “Once again, all together now—sing as loud as you can!”

  Midway through the chorus, Bill heard his cue. He came barreling out of the back room with his sack slung over his shoulder and his wig a bit cockeyed. “Ho-ho-ho, you children remembered and left the door open for old Santa,” he shouted over their excited squeals.

  As he approached the stage, I gasped. I jumped from the platform and bellied up to him. Forgetting about my lapel microphone, I sputtered, “Santa, XYZ!”

  He lifted a shoulder and cocked a brow, then shrugged and sang obligingly, “A-B-C-D . . .”

  Horrified, and wide-eyed, I hissed, “Santa, XYZ!”

  “E-F-G, H-I-J-K, L-M-N-O . . .”

  “Stop singing!” I could see the confusion in his eyes. “XYZ! Examine.Your. Zipper. Fix your pants,” I shrilled.

  In his haste to get dressed, Bill had cinched the fur of his jacket into his belt. I tugged it down over his gaping pants. Thank heavens he’d worn jeans underneath.

  “Don’t you know what XYZ stands for?” I muttered in his ear.

  “Nope,” he whispered back. “In my day, we said, ‘The barn door’s open.’”

  Well, the children had promised to “leave the door open.” But I never thought Santa would, too!

  Christmas in July

  By Todd Outcalt

  In July of 1997, I received a phone call from a social worker.

  “I’m a visiting nurse,” she said, “and every Tuesday morning I help a young lady named Myra who is homebound. She listens to your radio broadcast on Sunday mornings and was wondering if you might find time to stop by and see her this week?”

  As a pastor, I often get these requests, but this one seemed different. “Certainly,” I said. “Give me the address, and I’ll stop by this afternoon.”

  On the drive to that part of town that hot day, I made my way past ramshackle houses and a plethora of junkyard dogs and abandoned cars. I slipped along rows of shotgun houses until I found the address and eased my car into a small opening in the barren yard.

  I rang the bell on the front porch and was instantly greeted by a shout from the belly of the tiny house. I inched open the door and walked inside where Myra—probably in her early thirties—reclined on a gigantic bed. It was fitted with a system of ropes, pulleys, and lifts, all designed to hoist her limp body from the bed to a waiting wheelchair.

  “Are you the pastor I listen to on Sunday ­mornings?”

  “Yes, I suppose I am.” I drifted to her side to introduce myself. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Myra.”

  Slowly, she lifted a palsied hand and smiled. “Thank you . . . for visiting.” Each word was a struggle that brought her to the edge of breathlessness. “I wanted . . . to give you . . . a gift.”

  Although pastors often receive gifts, I was startled. It was clear that Myra could not walk, could barely lift a hand, and that some dreadful disease had been siphoning her strength for years, taking her day by day, week by week, until her body had been reduced to helplessness. I felt at once guilty and awkward, wondering what she could possibly have to spare—and how I could accept a present from this dear woman.

  “I love the radio broadcast,” she said. “I am your most . . . faithful listener.”

  “You might be the only listener,” I joked.

  She smiled. “Look behind you.”

  The living room was sparse—a cube containing a small couch, a television set on a stand, a wooden stool. I saw stacks of neglected magazines and dusty books, a hodgepodge of family photographs tacked to the wall . . . and a Christmas tree filled with angels.

  “I keep my tree up year round,” she answered at the questioning lift of my brows. “It’s always Christmas . . . in this house.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said, my hesitation obvious.

  “I have more than five hundred angels in my collection.”

  Indeed, branches on the artificial tree bent under the weight. Angels made of ceramic, tin, and wood. Angels fashioned from paper, wings thin as gossamer, ready to soar toward the heavens. There were angels with halos. Angels with glowing faces. Angels with feet of clay. Some did not look like angels at all—but had sad, circumspect, and fully human faces. Others had arms outstretched and welcoming. Angels of laughter. Of joy. Of mercy.

  “I’ve never seen so many in one place,” I admitted. “They are beautiful.”

  “I want . . . to give you one,” Myra said.

  How could I pluck an angel from her beloved tree? “Oh, I couldn’t disturb your collection.”

  “Please take one.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “It’s . . . a gift.”

  A gift. Yes. But . . . “It isn’t Christmas,” I said.

  “It is always . . . Christmas.”

  I padded toward the tree, paused to consider the choices. The angels smiled, shimmered, seemed to lift me with hovering wings. I would take a small one—the tiniest, the most homely, the least of these. Reaching toward the back of the tree I plucked a small rosebud angel from its
perch—a cherub with hands folded, eyes closed, deep in prayer.

  I showed it to Myra, asking permission with my gaze.

  “That’s little Tommy,” she said. “He is saying a prayer for you.”

  “Thank you,” I murmured.

  “Take him . . . home with you.”

  I edged back to Myra’s bedside, still uncomfortable with the idea of accepting the gift. The only thing I could offer in return was a prayer. And so we prayed, amid a Christmas in July, the giver and the gift.

  “May I visit you again?” I asked when it was time for me to leave.

  “Yes, please,” she said. “Come see me . . . again soon.”

  I saw Myra many times during the next dozen years. At each visit, however, she insisted I select a cherub from her Christmas tree to take home and add to my collection—my growing collection—of angels.

  And they are still with me, those symbols of heaven.

  As is Myra, with earthly angels in the form of friends and family and nurses—guardians who watch over her, steadying her hands, tending her fragile body, recognizing that she is the real gift. Myra, who bears witness to the unseen grace that moves the world and lifts us beyond the shadows of this life.

  Myra, a woman who teaches me that it is always Christmas. Even in July.

  Up Front

  By Terri Elders

  Even though Mama always warned me to be careful what I wished for, I had no doubt I wanted a padded bra for Christmas. I wished for one when I blew out the candles on my twelfth birthday and again when I split the Thanksgiving wishbone with my sister. Once I even sneaked outside late at night to search for a falling star to wish on, too.

  I had skipped a grade at school, so felt dwarfed by the other girls in seventh grade who wore bras, whether they needed them or not. I’d seen a few girls in the restroom stuffing Kleenex for extra filler, but in the gym showers I recognized that most already had no need for such artifice. I did.

  I’d heard of training bras but thought that sounded like something for wannabe ten-year-olds, just one step up from an undershirt. I longed for the real article, a lacy 32AA with some slight padding to give me the illusion of curves. My older sister Patti had bras, and I wanted one, too.

  Actually, wanted might be too mild a word to describe how incredibly desperate I was to be able to look down and see something other than my slightly knobby knees. I pined, I yearned, and I hankered and hungered. Sometimes, at night, I’d pat a hand across my concave chest as I called for divine intervention.

  “Not too big,” I’d whisper, “just a little something to distinguish me from my brother.”

  At first, my parents scoffed at my request. “Christmas is a time for games, for things you really need. Like coats, for example, not underwear,” Mama said.

  “Bra? That’s silly,” Daddy said.

  Patti agreed that she, for one, needed a new coat, a pea jacket just like the other girls were sporting that winter.

  But I whined and wheedled, moaned and groaned, until finally Mama sighed and shook her head. “We’ll think about it.”

  Daddy grumbled, but I knew I had won. When Mama thought about something, it got well thought about, and I knew she wanted me to be happy. And to look nice. Just like she always reminded me to wear clean shorts when I went to play tennis and to wash my hair when I came home from the playground pool.

  On Christmas morning, Patti opened her present first, the biggest box under the tree. She pulled out a navy blue pea jacket and squealed with delight. She threw it on and vamped around the living room as if she were parading down a catwalk. I had to admit she looked chic indeed in the broad-lapelled coat with its slash pockets and big wooden buttons.

  My old red wool would get me through another winter, I told myself, even though I had noticed it was getting snug across the shoulders. I reached for my package, much smaller, but gaily wrapped. I opened the box and spied, nestled among the tissue, not one, but two delicate brassieres.

  My father and brother looked the other way when I pulled them from the box, but Mama and Patti smiled. I scampered into the bedroom to try one on and nearly cried for joy when I saw myself in the mirror. I had a bosom at long, long last. For the next few hours I preened, pretending not to notice my brother’s knowing smirks.

  Later that day we prepared for the drive to Grandma’s for Christmas dinner. Since the temperature in late December had dipped into the low forties, cold for Southern California, I threw on my old red jacket. But when I started to ­button it up I realized I had a problem. No matter how hard I tugged, the buttons wouldn’t slip into the buttonholes. They were about half an inch shy.

  The culprit was my Christmas bra. The padding added just enough girth to my front to render the coat unclosable. And red wool did not fall into the category of a stretch fabric.

  I had a choice—either remove the bra or go to Grandma’s coatless. I chose the latter, yanking the army blanket from my bed and wrapping it around my shoulders. Nobody said anything when we piled into the backseat, but I couldn’t help noticing how pretty and warm Patti looked in her new coat.

  Grandma marveled at my enhanced figure. “She’s really growing up,” she said, even though she’d seen me the week before and must have known I couldn’t develop that fast. Grandpa did a silent double take.

  When school started after winter break, I decided to put the bras aside until the weather got warmer. I couldn’t substitute my army blanket on the long hike to the bus, so would have to button my jacket against the chill. I thought about tucking a bra into my zipper notebook and sneaking into the restroom before classes, but remembered how embarrassed those girls had looked when I saw them with the Kleenex. I decided not to make myself a laughingstock. The bras would wait for their school debut.

  By spring I had grown two inches and gained ten pounds. On the first day balmy enough to head for the bus without my old jacket, I eagerly pulled one of the bras from the drawer where they had languished all winter. So pretty, I thought as I stuck my arms through the straps and reached behind to fasten the hooks.

  It wouldn’t hook. I took it off and stared at it in disbelief. The 32AA was now too small. Then my eye fell on something else, something softly rounded.

  “Be careful what you wish for,” Mama had said.

  Thank heavens my birthday was coming up soon. I knew exactly what to wish for. A new jacket in a larger size. Because it was suddenly clear that Mama and I would have to go to the store for underwear before then. Probably right away!

  Owed to Joy

  By Ted Thompson

  Shelly was the perfect age for Christmas: old enough to understand the true meaning of the season, but still completely enchanted by the magic of it. Her innocent joyfulness was compelling and catching, and a great gift to parents, reminding us what Christmas should represent no matter how old we are.

  The most highly prized gift Shelly received on Christmas Eve was a giant bubble-maker. It was a simple device of plastic and cloth that the inventor promised would create huge, billowing bubbles large enough to swallow our wide-eyed four-year-old. Both Shelly and I were excited about trying it out, but it was after dark so we’d have to wait until the next day.

  That night after all the gifts had been opened, I read the instruction booklet while Shelly played with some of her other new toys. The inventor of the bubble-maker had tried all types of soaps for formulating bubbles and had found that Joy dishwashing detergent created the best giant bubbles. I’d have to buy some.

  The next morning I was awakened early by small stirrings in the house. Shelly was up. I knew in my sleepy mind that Christmas Day could be held back no longer, so I rose and made my way toward the kitchen to start the coffee.

  In the hallway I met my tiny daughter, already wide awake, the bubble-maker clutched in her chubby little hand, the wonder of C
hristmas morning embraced in her young heart.

  “Daddy, can we make bubbles now?” Her eyes sparkled with excitement.

  I sighed heavily. I rubbed my eyes. I looked toward the window where the sky was only beginning to lighten with the dawn. I looked toward the kitchen where the coffeepot had yet to start dripping.

  “Shelly,” I said, my voice almost pleading, and perhaps a little annoyed, “It’s too early. I haven’t even had my coffee yet.”

  Her smile fell away. Immediately, I felt a father’s remorse for bursting her bright Christmas bubble with what she must have seen as my own selfish problem, and my heart broke a little.

  But I was a grown-up. I could fix this. In a flash of adult inspiration, I unloaded the responsibility. Recalling the inventor’s recommendation of a particular brand of bubble-making detergent—which I knew we did not have in the house—I laid the blame squarely on him, pointing out gently, “Besides, Shelly, you have to have Joy.”

  I watched her eyes light up again as she realized in less than an instant that she could neutralize this small problem with the great and wonderful truth she had to reveal.

  “Oh, Daddy,” she pledged, glowing with honesty and enthusiasm and Christmas excitement, “Oh, Daddy, I do.”

  I broke records getting to the store, and in no time at all we were out on the front lawn creating gigantic, billowing, gossamer orbs—each one conjured of purest Joy, and sent forth shimmering in the Christmas sun.

  Of Evergreens and Fake Firs:

  The Trees We’ve Known and Loved

  All in a Row

  By Anne Culbreath Watkins

  My father is the gruff, outdoorsy type who prefers hiking through the woods to sitting sedately inside a stuffy house. At eighty years old, Daddy has a mind of his own and is quick to set straight anyone who dares suggest he slow down. He is stubborn and not a man prone to displays of sentimentality. Yet despite this brusque demeanor, he never passes up a chance to celebrate the holidays with family.