Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners

by Gretchen Anthony

  Cerise also reports that when she returns home, she’ll be bringing with her a dear friend named Barb, a fellow Rensselaer classmate and Fine Arts major whom Cerise took under her wing during their time together on campus. Both Cerise and Barb traveled to their New York school from Midwest upbringings (Barb hails from Cincinnati, where I believe her great-great-grandfather started a shipping company that’s still in the family today), and both young women seem to have found kindred Midwest spirits in each other. Let’s hope the young men of Minneapolis and St. Paul are prepared, as I suspect these two beauties are about to give them a run for their money and attention! We think of you like a daughter, Barb, and we welcome you to our modest Minnesota family.

  And now, my good friends, the telephone is ringing and the pile of letters I’ve yet to answer grows, so I must sign off. But I do so with the deepest joy and most sincere wishes of Evergreen Tidings to you and yours, tonight and throughout the coming year.

  Ed and Violet Baumgartner

  3

  Violet

  THE PHONE CALL to the caterers would have to wait; Violet was late for her Dorcas Circle meeting at church. Not that they’d start without her—the Faithful Redeemer Lutheran Church Christmas Fair for the Homeless, of which she was this year’s chairperson, comprised nearly the entirety of today’s agenda.

  Purse. Tote. Overcoat. Shoes. She took one last inventory of herself to ensure she had everything she needed, then slid into the driver’s seat, pulling the car door shut behind her. She loved the silence of a still car. The near-echoing quiet allowed her to gather her thoughts.

  She’d start with a serious review of the volunteer roster. Last year’s fair had relied too heavily on members of Faithful Redeemer’s high school youth group, a demonstratively unreliable bunch who showed up late and inappropriately attired—only teenage hubris could be blamed for flaunting about among those in need while wearing two-hundred-dollar jeans. And some of their crew hadn’t shown up at all, which, after chasing home several girls who looked like they’d melted into their jeans like chocolate into a mold, Violet thought perhaps was more blessing than curse.

  She turned her key in the car’s ignition and backed carefully to the end of the driveway, where she stopped, put the car into Park and pulled her pen and a copy of the day’s agenda from her tote bag. She made a note in the margin: Volunteer Dress Code.

  Now, then. Onward.

  Down the block, Mrs. Donaldson, her neighbor of nearly thirty years, stopped plucking the dead blossoms from the autumn mums on her front porch to wave hello.

  The fair committee would need time to review the flashy language in the special insert for Sunday’s bulletin. Unfortunately, the church secretary had submitted an early draft that encouraged church members to “Come one, come all.” For gracious’ sake. Didn’t she know the difference between a Christmas Fair and a hootenanny?

  Violet pulled over to the side of the road. She again pulled out her agenda and pen and made a second note: Too flashy.

  Violet engaged her blinker and turned right at the end of the block.

  This was the ninth Christmas Fair she had overseen, each year more successful than the last. And she suspected it might be her final hurrah. Who could predict what adventures would sweep her and dear Ed away after retirement? They needed to seize every moment before disease and old age took their toll. Not that she or Ed were old yet—heavens no. And she’d already made a doctor’s appointment for Ed to receive a physical the first week he was home. Health and adventure would be top priorities for them in their golden years—carpe diem, indeed.

  She drove one block farther, slowed to a complete stop at the stop sign and turned left.

  Truth be told, if anyone had predicted that her professor father would drop dead of a heart attack three months after delivering his final lecture, Violet would have made an appointment with his doctor, too. Her mother had always blamed his death on a lack of direction following the end of his career. “What was left for him to achieve?” she used to say with a melancholy Violet found ripe with self-pity. Violet, herself, was much more reasonable. She blamed her father’s death on the fact that her mother fried two eggs for breakfast every morning, and then drove the man to campus so she could have the car for shopping and errands. No wonder his heart stopped. He hadn’t exercised a single gram of cholesterol out of his arteries for forty years.

  No, Violet wouldn’t tolerate any unwelcome surprises when she and her husband had both worked so hard to achieve the life they had now. Ed knew that. But did the Lord? She certainly hoped He did.

  It was true, yes, that she’d nearly turned down the opportunity to head this year’s Christmas Fair committee, since she knew planning dear Ed’s retirement party would require most of her energies. Even so, she’d agreed to one last year. In fact, she’d already kicked off the donations drive by personally buying three American Girl dolls—a Kit, a Rebecca and a Samantha—along with each doll’s accompanying storybook set. It was the perfect Christmas gift—to the tune of $450 dollars, no less—and any girl would love to have it. Cerise never favored dolls as a child, of course, but then, she was always so busy reading the set of medical school texts Violet found at the used-book store for a dollar.

  At the end of the third block, Violet turned right into the nearly empty church parking lot.

  The hard truth was, Violet couldn’t step down from the committee yet. She needed one more year to prime her friend and committee cochair, Eldris Endres, to properly take over. Violet’s concerns over Eldris’s readiness weren’t so much a question of loyalty—she could trust her age-old friend to maintain the fair’s traditions. After all, the Baumgartners and the Endreses were of the same school of thought, the same old-home wisdom that placed the church at the heart of all things. They served side by side on the Dorcas Circle and had brought their children up through Sunday school and high school ministry together. Richard Endres was even dear Ed’s VP during his two-year term as president of the church council.

  No, Violet’s sole concern was with Eldris’s judgment. Several years ago, for example, she’d actually suggested that they send each family home with a poinsettia plant in addition to their gifts.

  “And have Faithful Redeemer get blamed,” Violet protested, “when hundreds of children end up in the hospital from eating the poisonous plant?” That was the end of the poinsettia debate.

  It was just before two o’clock when Violet walked through the church doors.

  From the street, Faithful Redeemer was postcard perfect: clapboard and brick with a steeple that could be seen for blocks. It was the sort of building that conjured up images of devout, hardworking folk dressed in muted colors and driving American cars. It even had a cornerstone that read, “Erected in 1870.” A hearty vintage for Lutherans.

  The early Minneapolis families who began the Faithful Redeemer history—mainly first-generation Swedish-immigrant storekeepers and livestock traders with family names such as Aasgaard and Ruud and Torsen—were an earnest and practical bunch. They built the original sanctuary themselves—Violet had always pictured it in an Amish barn raising sort of way—and for nearly a hundred years, the congregation wanted for nothing.

  But no congregation should have to function without space to gather both in worship and in fellowship. Finally, in 1964, Faithful Redeemer families funded the addition of Sunday school classrooms, a church office and the Fellowship Hall.

  That’s where the trouble began.

  In Violet’s estimation, nothing could have been as contrary to the style and intent of the original building—not to mention its founding families—than the modernist rubbish of the new addition. All rounded edges and dome ceilinged, it adhered to the side of the classic sanctuary like a tumor, hungrily metastasizing into the hillside on which it sat. And that was only the outside.

  The 1964 designs inflicted the families of Faithful Redeemer with a Fellowship
Hall in which the walls were carpeted in burnt-orange shag—or, as her dear Ed had once called it, “the color of my retinas burning.” And the attached kitchen couldn’t have been designed by anyone other than a man, since every food-related event had the women of the church bumping elbows and crawling on hands and knees to unearth serving dishes from dark and ancient depths. Arthritis flared with every potluck, tempers with every coffee hour.

  Until Violet stepped in.

  Just about ten years ago now, the women of Dorcas Circle took it upon themselves—under Violet’s leadership—to raise the funds to transform Fellowship Hall. Once a room of temperance and fire, today it was appealing, practical and beige. The walls were cleanly textured and painted, and the carpet, restricted only to the floor, was no longer shag but Berber. They’d even raised enough money to expand the kitchen and equip it properly with three ovens and two industrial refrigerators.

  Violet felt a sense of relief and pride every time she opened its doors.

  “Good afternoon, ladies!”

  The Christmas Fair committee members had already arrived and they’d helped themselves to coffee from the commercial-grade stainless steel pot in the kitchen. Violet shook her coat from her shoulders and sat down at the head of the table. Eldris handed her a steaming mug of black coffee.

  “Is that a new skirt, Violet? I haven’t seen you in pleats before.”

  It wasn’t a new skirt, but a very old one that she’d been holding at the back of her closet until the next charity clothing drive at church. She’d been so busy with her various projects lately, though, that she’d neglected to put the dry cleaning out for the delivery driver and now neither she nor dear Ed had anything pressed and ready to wear.

  “Pleats are coming back, apparently,” Violet said, flouncing the skirt about her knees. “What fun!”

  Eldris smiled and turned her attention to organizing the notebook and pen in front of her. Violet watched her quietly, trying to gauge the moment. Why the sudden interest in her shopping habits? New skirt or not, her friend seemed to be making a point. Eldris was always full of questions, yes, but there was something about her tone. Not judgment, exactly. Was it envy?

  Violet silently scolded herself for leaping to such a petty assumption.

  Then again.

  Richard Endres, Eldris’s husband, had been laid off nearly six months ago from a very senior position at a large Minneapolis advertising agency, and one could only assume money was quickly becoming an issue. A man like Richard was too old to start over and too young to retire. Not to mention, too proud to ever admit they were in trouble.

  Violet resented awkward moments like this. Ed had been very responsible with their investments. Retirement would be comfortable for them. And Violet, too, had played her part—never paying full price and always remembering the value of a dollar. There was nothing she could do to fix the Endreses’ financial woes.

  And to think that they soon had their son’s wedding to pay for. Violet shifted in her seat just thinking of the bills. Perhaps luck would favor them and it would be one of those affairs where the bride’s family paid for everything.

  Violet made a mental note: No new dress for the Endres wedding.

  Moving on.

  She smoothed the stack of agendas in front of her and straightened her pencil, then passed her fingertips across the locket at her neck and let the smooth cool of the gold calm her.

  “We’re here, of course, to bring a touch of Christmas joy to any neighbors in our Cedar-Isles community who’ve fallen on hard times this year.” She passed the agendas to Eldris, who stood and distributed them around the table.

  “The event will remain largely unchanged from years past. We’ll spend the month of December collecting donations and the fair will be held on the last Saturday before Christmas. Everyone will be issued two tickets. The first allows them to choose a gift for themselves, and the second, a gift for someone else.”

  The women at the table murmured their consent.

  “Now, last year we discovered that several families had more children than tickets. So this year we’ll set aside a stock of tickets to hand out as circumstances require.”

  Eldris nodded fervently and scribbled in her notebook. No one, Violet noted thankfully, mentioned aloud the commotion they’d encountered last year when a single mother marched through the door with seven children in tow. Each child wished to use their second ticket on a gift for their mother. That was fine. The real issue was the volume with which their mother began to question volunteer staff about just which one of her children she was supposed to use her extra ticket on. “The Lord blessed me with each and every one of them,” she’d hollered, “but now you ladies, here, seem to be asking me to choose.” Violet had shoved a fistful of gift cards into the woman’s pockets and ushered her out the door as quickly as she could.

  They wouldn’t risk that scene again.

  Violet continued, “And there is, of course, the issue of video games. I have long been vocal about my desire to make it a policy that we neither solicit nor accept electronic donations of any kind. It is unfathomable that we—especially the members of the Faithful Redeemer community—would spend good money only to encourage the decay of young minds.” She paused, letting her point sink in. “Can I get a second on the motion?”

  Silence.

  Just like last year. And the year before. She shouldn’t be surprised at the moral cowardice in the room today, and yet she was. Where was their indignity? Like she’d said all along, good-hearted kindness such as their Christmas Fair was nothing more than displaced pity if it encouraged the decline of a whole generation of children.

  After a moment, Eldris cleared her throat and raised a sorry hand. Violet nodded in acknowledgment.

  “It’s not that we disagree with you per se, Violet...”

  Per se. Did Eldris really think flowery language made her sound more convincing? Violet folded her hands and placed them in her lap. She would just have to ride this out.

  “But it comes down to a matter of judgment. If a child has his heart set on a video game, who are we to decide that it’s not good for him? That’s the parents’ job, I think.”

  Another committee member, Meg—who sat holding her toddler daughter—spoke up. Violet noticed she hadn’t waited to be called on. “There are loads of educational video games available these days.” She nodded at the blond-headed girl in her lap. “Sylvia here is learning her ABCs from Elmo on my iPad.”

  Hearing the name, the child raised expectant eyes to her mother and clapped. “Elmo?” She was squealing now.

  “Oops! Shouldn’t have said his name aloud.” Meg reached over and pulled a bright pink rectangle from her diaper bag. It was an iPad, as far as Violet could tell, but it was encased in several inches of foam and had a pair of bunny ears sticking out the top.

  The child squealed with renewed vigor and the committeewomen watched as Meg quickly turned on the screen and located Elmo. Sylvia grabbed one of the bunny ears, slid off her mother’s lap and toddled off into the corner, eyes glued to the screen in her hands.

  “See what I mean?” said Meg. “Video games aren’t all bad.”

  The women murmured their agreement. Not Violet. She was thinking that the child had been a perfect angel until her mother gave her an excuse to misbehave.

  She and Ed had allowed their daughter, Cerise, only thirty minutes of television every day, and only after homework was completed and reviewed, and only if the program was educational. Their diligence paid off. Cerise had been the only child in her fourth grade class to do a current events report on the disturbing rise of antibiotic-resistant bacterium strains, as documented in the PBS program, Nova.

  “Be that as it may,” said Violet, “I think we can all agree that the gentle monsters of Sesame Street are unusual in the world of video game characters. Just last week I was forced to watch a child in the dent
ist’s office shoot zombies with grenades. The gore was appalling.”

  Meg piped up, again without waiting for Violet to yield the floor. “I really can’t believe the members of our congregation wouldn’t exercise good judgment when selecting a gift. Have we had trouble with violent donations in the past?”

  Eldris shook her head. “Only the once—someone donated a G.I. Joe doll.”

  Meg laughed. “G.I. Joe isn’t violent. He’s basically a Barbie doll with muscles.”

  Violet was stunned at the young mother’s ignorance. “A doll that promotes war and comes with his own machine gun.” She made a mental note to keep an eye on young Sylvia as she grew up.

  In the end, the women of the Dorcas Circle found a comfortable middle ground on the question of electronics, deciding that all promotional materials would include a list of Recommended Donations and Not Recommended Donations. Violet gave the decision a B+.

  After the meeting, Eldris took her aside. “I know we didn’t reach an ideal solution, Violet. But let me assure you—our son, Kyle, played every sort of video game throughout his teenage years and he turned out just fine.”

  “Thank you, Eldris. Your words mean a great deal to me.” She smiled. Eldris was a waif of a thing—she pushed her food around on the plate rather than eat it—but she was as stalwart a defender of family as Violet. Judgment was one thing. Values were quite another.

  Which meant, of course, she would never admit to poor Eldris that, contrary to his mother’s esteem, Violet would give Kyle Endres a C+. Just fine, was right. He was pleasant enough, and he’d managed to graduate from university and begin a career as an optometrist—the variety of eye doctor, Violet was keen to remember, that did not require an MD. But he was boastful and overly pleased with himself, always bragging about the trips to Africa he’d taken with EyeShine, the fledgling nonprofit he’d founded to collect used eyewear for third world countries—and that stayed afloat only because his mother haunted her friends for donations and because the good people of Faithful Redeemer changed their eye fashion so frequently.