She couldn’t recall the last time she’d had a present. It may have been the necklace she’d received from her grandmother when she was twelve, or maybe it was some other little thing she’d received from one of the foster families in the years after that and before she’d run away. But it was all so very long ago now.

She’d never blamed anyone. She’d never known her parents, them both being the kind that disappeared when troubles arose – troubles such as a baby. Her grandmother had cared for her until she, herself, needed care. It had just seemed best to start out on her own. She’d done pretty well, too, if she did say so, herself. Never married. No, not that. Too much – trouble.

But she’d made a decent living and a few friends here and there, and had retired before they’d let her go, though no one would have said anything about age.

When December came, she had carefully lifted out cardboard boxes holding the treasures of her favorite time of year and had pulled each piece out to put in its proper place. She wasn’t certain why she felt compelled every year to do such a thing. There wasn’t anyone to make happy by little Christmassy touches, and she didn’t actually believe in the baby in the manger. Jesus was a word that slipped out when she was frustrated, though why she should use the name of the one she didn’t actually believe in mystified her if she thought about it, so she mostly didn’t.

Christmas Eve descended into a clear, dark sky sprinkled with stars. As she sipped some cocoa, she sat back and took in the sight of her house decorated for a day celebrating the birth of someone who she deemed unworthy of celebrating and wished this year would be different. She wasn’t one of those who believed something you bought for yourself could be called a gift, but she wished, this once, she might receive a gift.

The doorbell rang, and she jumped up. No one ever came to visit. Who would come now? She opened the door to nothing but cold air on a dark night. She leaned out and peered down the street. No one. Yet there, on the top step was a box with her name on it. She pulled it into the warmth of her home and slit the tape.

And there,

nestled in strawwas the best gift of all.

The house was a wonderland of tiny snowflakes and bells, of gingerbread men and spritz cookies and fudge, and of wreaths of every size in every room. Scents of cinnamon and orange peel lightly infused the air. Candy canes bunched together in a cut-glass jar. On the dining room table stood a gingerbread house, carefully baked and designed with loving hands. And on a bookcase shelf near the mantel, not too obvious, but fitting in just so, the crèche.

Her eyes roamed over each scene as she walked casually from room to room. She’d always loved Christmas and her habit of decorating for The Day was one of the few things that had outlasted her troubles. The only thing that was missing was the star. She had one at one time and not too long ago, either. A few Christmases ago, it had fallen from the top of the tree and broken beyond repair. That was the year she had retired. It was the year she had been diagnosed with something that sucked the life from her until modern medicine and sheer determination had killed it. And it was the year she had sat alone in silence just as the last minutes of the day had ticked away, and city dwellers were welcoming in the new year with little horns and midnight kisses.

Oh, she didn’t mind the silence. Before – before she’d battled death – she’d loved joining in life with those around her. But she’d changed. Since her illness, she’d become a bit of a loner and quietness soothed her more often than not. Still, at this time of year when families were traveling long distances just to spend the day together and friends gathered for dinners and teas and parties, her quiet life tweaked her. She thought maybe she should read again the Christmas cards sent to her and send her own in return. Perhaps she should join the coffee party announced for the next day by old friends, the annual event she had ignored during her silent years. Maybe she should go to church. An inaudible, dismissive laugh escaped her lips. No, of the many things she could think of only the loveliness around her merited her attention.

She looked at the beautiful tree placed in front of her window. She’d done at least that; a gesture to those passing by that someone in her house believed in the light of life. But it still bothered her that the topmost branch of the Christmas tree from where the little star had pronounced its benediction for over forty years was now bare. It troubled her that the tree’s top missed the star which most assuredly belonged there.

She turned off each light, sat for a time in the dark, then stretched out on the couch thinking of better days and happier times. She must have drifted off, for it was two in the morning when she woke. She rubbed her eyes, then rubbed them again. There above the crèche was a little light. It wasn’t the shape of anything, but it made her happier than she recalled ever being. And she watched it as, in the stillness of the night, it glowed with a warmth she had forgotten. As she watched it in its tiny place above the Christ child, peace flooded her spirit. It was as though goodness, itself, was in the room with her, filling her up with hope and love.

She glanced at the clock. Who cared for sleep? If she hurried, she could address those unsent Christmas cards and still make it in time for the coffee party.

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The weather forecasters all agreed. It was going to be a doozy. The balmy warmth that had washed November with its counterfeit promises was about to be blasted to smithereens by a winter storm of snow and ice and the kind of cold that froze not only toes, but bones. Newscasters, mayors, hospitals, and the police force throughout the Midwest pleaded with anyone who watched or heard: Stay indoors.

Thea had pleaded, herself. Stay put. Don’t come. But it was the first Christmas since her husband had died, the first Christmas their only child had been without her strong, dependable papa who always made everything better. He had owned a small theater company that barely scraped by. His grand plans to expand and change lives had never materialized. But it didn’t matter to Clara. To Clara, he surpassed all the directors in New York and London combined. His words echoed in her memory: “Follow your spark, sweetheart. Follow your light.”

She had finally turned off her phone to ignore her mother’s messages. She didn’t want to hear them because they told her something that didn’t accommodate her desires. She didn’t want to listen because she was nineteen.

She wasn’t a child anymore. She could take care of herself. If the roads became impassable, she’d simply take the nearest exit and find a café to wait it out.

Miles multiplied, and as millions of tiny snowflakes pelted her window, obscuring dark from light, Clara began peering down every passing exit, each town’s darkened signs a testimony to businesses closed to the impending storm.

Thea jumped at the teapot’s whistle, then scuffed to the kitchen. With a shaking hand, she poured the steaming water into the cup of peppermint tea, then held the cup close to her face the better to feel the warmth of it. She glanced at the clock. Clara would have been on the road ten hours now if she had left as planned. Then, in a sudden act of faith, Thea poured a second cup.

She placed it on the fireplace mantel, then stood in the spot she had haunted for hours this day as she had watched the sky turn from winter white to darker gray until light receded into wind-whipped, snow-covered darkness.

What was that? She squinted, then blinked. Her breath fogged the window and she felt its cold pane on her cheek. The infinitesimal light grew larger. A light, but not headlights. A spotlight shone down on the car as it inched its way down the street following a string of footlights that lit its path.

“And then,” Clara concluded her story of sliding on the icy road and desperate prayers for help, “the lights came on. It felt like I was back at Dad’s theater.”

They held hands as through the window they watched the curious lights dim, then go out in the whiteout of the night’s blizzard.

Image: https://pixabay.com/en/blizzard-snow-flurry-snowflakes-91904/ public domain

“Tonight, folks, you see the miracle of Christmas all around you. It is in the help given to a neighbor, the music resounding through stores and churches, in resplendent parades and pageants. It is in the tinsel and color and sparkle shining through each window. It is in the light of the eyes of a child. It is in our hearts.”

Dan shrugged into his jacket and plucked the key from his pocket to lock the door. He had hit all the right notes tonight. The audience had chuckled and nodded at just the right places. It had become second nature by now. Just as his grandmother had hoped, he had become a very good speaker. Very good. He knew how to move a crowd, how to fill them with questions or anger or, like tonight, fill their hearts with the blessed joy of the holiday.

He stepped quickly down the cement steps, breathing in the cold night air. He stopped and looked around him at muted lights of a city gone dark and quiet on a night when most turned to home for nurture and entertainment. Christmas Eve.

As he turned the lock of his home, a striking building on an upscale city block, his foot nudged something on the top step. Picking it up, he turned it over in his hands. A small piece from a crèche. Whose it was or how it had landed on his step he had no idea, but someone would be missing this tonight. Surely they would want it to complete the Christmas scene.

He bent down and dropped the infant Jesus back in its place as he stepped over it and shut his door. He would turn on one of those wonderful Christmas movies tonight and appreciate the stories with happy endings. He would drink cocoa and eat some fudge someone had given him. He would play games on the new computer he had indulged in as a Christmas present to himself.

And the baby Jesus lay in the quiet night outside in the cold.

Photo: Caribou-Coffee.jpg

Standing here looking at the lights, she felt a presence and turned her head to see the old chaplain standing next to her.

“Have you forgiven her yet?”

He said it as though their conversation begun with his comment in her hospital room had continued through the years. Here beside the Christmas lights the question seemed as natural as the evergreens in front of them.

“Does it matter? It’s been so many years.”

She could hardly believe it, but his standing next to her didn’t bother her as it had that very first time. It didn’t frighten her as it had in her dream, nor surprise her as it had at the grocery store. It seemed, in fact, somehow good – like he was a very old friend.

“Forgiveness always matters.”

She stood, breathing white puffs into the night while the tree lights sparkled, the darkness exposing their beauty and color.

She thought about the neighbor, the woman whose jealousy of her happy life had inflamed the hostile act. That day’s destruction was not limited to dwelling, but extended to thought and emotion, trust and memory. She breathed another vapor of white into the air. She was tired of it all. She knew now that she really did want to let it go; let all of it go. She wanted to release the debt. She nodded her head. Yes. She forgave the neighbor. She knew she could, and she really did.

Gazing anew at the Christmas lights, she breathed in their beauty and goodness. It seemed suddenly that their friendly, sparkling light shot into her soul baptizing it with warmth and brightness. She looked into the old chaplain’s compassionate eyes and saw in them her reflection.

She blinked and peered more closely. Slowly she brought her hand up to her face, the skin between her thumb and forefinger no longer webbed. As she ran her fingers over her now smooth skin, she closed her eyes against the tears pooling there. Was it true? Had the stranger’s comment long ago in the agony of her hospital room really taken place? Surely not. But she had forgiven – she knew that much – and when she had determined to let the transgression go, she really had felt a very strange pulse run through her body.

“What happened?” she asked as she opened her eyes.

But the old chaplain wasn’t there, and the Christmas lights glowed brighter into the cold, dark night.

Image: commons.wikimedia.org_.png

She exhaled a puff of white that momentarily hung in the air before vanishing into the darkness. Hugging herself with her arms, she shivered; but she would stay just awhile longer to enjoy what she had come to see. They were pretty: twinkling beauty against the cold, night air. The lights had been strung the weekend before on evergreens encircling the skating rink. The tiny white bulbs that had graced the pines all the years before had been moved to the bushes and deciduous trees outside city hall. Resting in the now bare-boned branches, the lights gave a certain panache to the surroundings of the otherwise unremarkable building by which they stood.

But the red and green, blue and purple lights now lending their sparkle to the rink’s evergreen edge were amazing. She thought, as she gazed at them, she hadn’t seen anything so stunning in a long time. A very long time.

It had been ten years now since the fire, but in her mind it was yesterday. A neighbor – one she barely knew – who had resented her happy life even as she smiled and waved each time they met had channeled her jealousy into a lighted match thrown onto her morning paper resting on the jute rug in her small, enclosed front porch. Her morning ritual to switch off the outdoor light and get the newspaper had resulted in a backdraft which sent her to the hospital for treatment she wished she could forget and a future she wished she could escape.

A morning jogger had provided testimony of the event, and the neighbor had gotten five years and the satisfaction of destroying the irritating happy life.

Knowing what had happened and why and punishing the perpetrator couldn’t change the image she saw every time she looked in the mirror. Her scarred face and neck, once pretty – some said beautiful – were oppressive to see. The scars seemed to thicken with every year and a quiet, gnawing sadness grew with them.

She had avoided anything to do with fire, even light, at first. After its inhabitant had returned from the hospital, the neighbors saw a dark house, its interior as devoid of light as its owner’s soul. Light was unavoidable, of course, and gradually she had allowed it in its many forms to filter back into her life. She had left all light switches untouched for a long time; but one day she had turned on a lamp, and the next week she turned on the kitchen light. She was able to flick those switches now, but only one room at a time. There was no point in wasting electricity.

It had been easy to remove reflective surfaces – vases, silverplate, mirrors. The bathroom mirror had stayed. It was like living with an old friend she no longer appreciated. She didn’t need a mirror to remind her of the fire’s wrath. She saw it in the pitying faces of friends and the curious, repulsed, stolen glances of strangers. She felt it in the webbing between her thumb and forefinger.

A visitor to her hospital room had told her that maybe one day her skin would be as good as new, but forgiveness was more important than skin. It had to do with the inner pain, the pain that would never go away without it. He, she supposed, was an old chaplain looking for something to do or say; but his words were harsh. Forgiveness of the neighbor? Forgiveness of someone who had caused her such grief and pain seemed ridiculous. She hoped that neighbor would live hand to mouth, that she would have trouble finding work because of her criminal record, that she was disgusted with herself. The nurse attending her just then had completely ignored him. People could give care without caring, she had thought at the time. She had ignored him, too.

She had ignored everyone at first. It was two years after the explosion when she saw the old chaplain in a dream. He just stood, looking at her, waiting. The next time was at the grocery store. Well, actually, she couldn’t be sure about that. She had thought she’d caught a glance, but when she looked more closely, he was gone. She thought about the jealous neighbor, and wondered where she was now.

to be continued…

Image: Beeston_MMB_67_Christmas_lights_switch-on-wikimedia-commons.jpg; creative commons lic.

The year was at its close, and while the green and red of Christmas had turned to the silver and gold of New Year’s Eve decorations, one house stood still ensconced in its Christmas best. It had been ready for Christmas since before Thanksgiving, as though this Christmas held such goodness it could not wait for its allotted time on the calendar. To the passing observer glancing inside the window of the house there appeared to be stripes moving around. The stripes were red and blue, like a candy cane, running up and down a man’s pajama pants and ending at the new brown suede slippers he wore on his feet. There was a time when those feet walked up and down and streets of the city delivering mail to its residents. Now, however, bad knees the man had acquired playing college football and the hip replacement he’d had just two months ago gave him more of a shuffle than a gait. He’d taken early retirement in the face of the surgery. For a man once strong and active, it was a hit, but he’d made the decision and was living with it and the surgery’s resulting loss of strength.

Determination had helped him put up a tree for Christmas. Oh, it wasn’t real. He’d succumbed to practicality when he finally climbed out of the depression that had come with his wife’s death three years before, and just last year at his son’s suggestion written in a hastily scrawled letter, he had bought one at the local hardware store. It went up a lot more quickly, but it didn’t have the je ne sais quoi of the real ones sold at the lot six blocks away. Still, the lights he’d strung twinkled in the waning light of evening and ornaments collected over years of Christmases told stories of babies and childhoods and hobbies and beautiful things.

He’d climbed unsteadily on a chair and hung the mistletoe his wife had bought when they were newlyweds. He’d put out some throw pillows embroidered with poinsettias and manger scenes. As his eyes roamed over the room, it really did look like Christmas, he thought. It just needed one thing more. Every Christmas Eve since he was a boy, he’d set a candle in the window. It was for the Christchild, you see; for Mary and Joseph to find their way through the dark night to the safety of a warm place to stay. Though the first Christmas was long ago, maybe there was someone else needing that light and the warmth of home. That candlelight was more than just a light, like the star of Bethlehem. It was hope. It was invitation. It was love. It was peace. His mother had taught him that when he was old enough to light a match, and from then on that was his tradition. He’d passed it on to his son and hoped that one day his son would pass it on as well. He hoped, but he lacked certainty. Time could blur things from a son’s memory, he knew. Experiences could change a son’s priorities.

The trouble was his hand had grown unsteady from some of the medication his doctor insisted he take, and a creeping arthritis of late had made it weak. This night he’d tried and tried to light that match, but had only managed to achieve the slight odor of sulfur.

A knock at the door startled him and he shuffled to open it. It was the neighbor boy, there to belatedly collect the money he’d promised when he’d bought his wreath.

“Oh, Sammie, come in, come in,” he said when he saw him. “I’ve got it right here.”

He fished a twenty and a five out of his billfold lying on the end table and handed it to the boy.

“Say, could I ask a favor? You’re a Boy Scout, after all, you do a good deed daily,” he chuckled.

The boy looked bored, but nodded his head.

The man led him over the front window, and pulled a matchbook from his pajama pocket.

“Would you mind lighting this for me?” he asked.

“But it’s after Christmas, Mr. Simmons. We’ve already got our Christmas tree down.”

The man nodded.

“Yes, yes it’s time to put things away, isn’t it? But I just want to light this candle tonight and tomorrow I might think about putting things back in their boxes.”

The boy struck the match and lit the candle. The man patted him on the back and walked him to the door.

“Thanks, Sammie.”

Sammie nodded and jumped off the porch to join the friend who was accompanying him on his rounds.

“What took you so long?” his friend complained as they started down the street.

“Oh, the old man wanted a candle lit.”

For some reason the boys found it funny and began to laugh as they went on their way. And the man watched them, lost in thought, as they jostled each other as boys will do.

The man finally made his way to the couch and watched some T.V. Then he did a crossword puzzle until, finally, his head drooped to his chest and he lightly slept while the candle burned. His dreams were filled with images of his boy; the boy he’d taught to ride a bike and catch a football and shoot a gun; the boy he hadn’t seen in three years.

The sound of a taxi pulling up at the curb woke him, and he made his way to the window. A young man in uniform sat for a moment looking through the window of the taxi to the candle dancing brightly just inside. He climbed out, pulling his duffle after him. Running up the walk, he smiled broadly as he caught his father’s eye through the light of the candle he had often thought of from a distant desert where such a thing had seemed very far away. Its glow reached beyond Christmas Eve, beyond an enlisted soldier’s cot, beyond changes like death and retirement and surgeries, and wrapped the father and son in its promise.

It started out like a typical morning. She woke up at 6:00, prayed for various things and people, lacking the energy for the fervent prayer mentioned in the Bible, but with the knowledge that when you don’t have the energy to do something right, you do what you can. She got up at 6:30, plodded into the kitchen in her bathrobe and slippers, poured a cup of yesterday’s cold coffee with a splash of milk, and settled into her rocking chair to read a chapter in the Bible, something she’d done nearly every day since she was baptized when a 4th grader. It was a habit. It was a good habit. It did for her what she could not do for herself. It grounded her. It supplied wisdom that wasn’t hers. It made her believe in miracles.

It was December 23rd, and a few things still needed to be done before Christmas Day. She ran down to the laundry room, started a load of laundry and was grateful that some things did most of the work themselves, like a washing machine. She drove to the mall and picked up a few last minute gifts, then to the grocery store and home again to put everything away. She still needed to run into the city to shovel a walk or two at the home of her parents and their neighbors and fix greenery and berries in their window box – something that had been delayed due to the cold. It didn’t appear the cold would abate anytime soon, though, and Christmas was two days away! She would have to haul out the ladder and get it done despite the single digit temperature.

She called her teenage son to help her (the ladder would be too heavy for one person, or at least for her to manage alone), threw a shovel in the backseat, and pulled out of the driveway.

“Slow down, Mom,” her son cautioned.

The newly licensed driver was telling his mother what she sometimes said to him when their places were reversed. When did he get to be so responsible? However, five or ten miles per hour over the limit wasn’t hurting anyone, and Christmas was two days away!

A train whistle sounded in concert with her son’s voice. She looked to her left, and there it was. What?! She had never, in all the years she’d taken this route, seen a train on this rarely used track. She braked, but the car slid on the snowy street into the path of the coming train. She could see every detail on the approaching train and as crazy as it was, considering the situation, thought it was pretty. Things do that. During the emergencies of life, things slow down, details sharpen. Maybe that’s the way things really are, and all of the other times, the times when we go about our daily business, are when we see least clearly. She gunned the accelerator and flew over the track as the train passed behind them.

And that was when two facts made their way to the front of all of the other things that needed to be done two days before Christmas. Christmas would come whether or not there was enough food in the refrigerator or the house was clean or cookies were baked. It would come despite the most beautiful decorations or no decorations at all. It would come because birthdays aren’t dependent on what we do in the days and months and years afterward to celebrate the event, but because the event happened at a place in time and cannot be changed whether people want to celebrate it or ignore it or despise it.

The second fact she remembered was that life is a series of doing what you can with God filling in the gaps. She was grateful for that because she would never be great or even adequate, but God would always be more than enough.

And that, dear readers, is a miracle in my December posts on miracles that is personal; because the she in this post is me, and Christmas is one day away, and I’m still here.

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