by Jeff Guinn
“Of course,” Arthur said, reaching into a pocket and handing me several pages of creased, well-worn paper. “After Leonardo and I arrived in Nuremberg I wrote to Nicholas right away, telling him we’d closed the London toy factory, at least for a while. I didn’t tell him you’d remained behind in Canterbury. Perhaps you wrote him about that yourself? You didn’t, did you? Well, that, of course, is your decision. Anyway, it must have taken him a long time to receive my letter, and it certainly took months for his reply to reach me. Here it is; I’ll just wander around a bit while you read.”
Arthur disappeared over a small knoll, and I settled down in the fading fall grass with Nicholas’s letter. Even his handwriting, so grand and flowing, made me miss him. It had been so many years since we had been together! Well, we wouldn’t be apart much longer.
The first part of the letter described his life with Felix in the New World. They were now living in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, and very much enjoying the holiday customs there. Dutch children expected visits from St. Nicholas on December 6, and there were enough of them to keep Nicholas and Felix quite busy making and delivering toys on time. But the British colonies were still Puritan-dominated, and Father Christmas was not welcome in them—an extension, Nicholas noted, of the Christmas troubles in England.
“Though I’m sorry you felt the London toy factory must be closed, I certainly understand and agree with that decision,” he wrote. “What a terrible thing it is when a few close-minded people force their own prejudices on everyone else. But I hope that, like me, all of you continue to believe in the overall goodness of human nature. Bad times do not last forever. Because the vast majority of the English people want Christmas, I know that they will, somehow, get it back again.”
Then, to my amazement, my husband addressed me directly. He had not done this in his previous letters. After more than twelve centuries of marriage, we did not need to constantly reassure each other of our love. But, separated from his wife by a vast ocean, Nicholas still instinctively understood that just now I did need some extra words from him.
“Layla, none of Arthur’s recent letters have made much specific mention of you,” Nicholas wrote. “I don’t know for certain, but I suspect that you are planning, in some way, to challenge the English Parliament’s outlawing of Christmas. I won’t insult you by pointing out the dangers of such action. You will have considered them for yourself. I will only remind you that whatever you do, you have my complete support. We are now, as we have always been, equal partners. Though I can’t share these difficult times with you in person, I am always with you in your heart. Do whatever you believe is right, and then board a ship and come across the ocean to me, so I can put my arms around you again after so many years.”
I suppose I sat there for a half hour or more, tears dripping down my cheeks onto the grass, before Arthur returned. He sat down beside me and patted my shoulder.
“I miss my husband so much,” I murmured. My throat felt thick, and my eyes burned from the salty tears.
“Of course you do,” Arthur said. “You know, Layla, we have received these wonderful gifts—apparently endless life, the ability to travel at amazing speeds, the opportunity to spread joy and comfort to children through our holiday mission. But they come with a price, as all worthwhile things do. You can no more let the Puritans’ banning of Christmas go unchallenged than you can resist breathing. That’s why I came back to England. I knew you would be planning something, and now the moment draws close. I’ll help in any way I can and, afterward, I’ll take you to the dock and smile as you board a boat that will take you across the ocean to your husband.”
“Thank you,” I gulped. Then I resolutely wiped my eyes, cleared my throat, put Nicholas’s letter in the pocket of my cloak, and got to my feet. “All right, Arthur,” I said. “I’ve had my weepy moment, and that is the end of that. Now, we have a Christmas Day protest to plan.”
And we did. Back in the Hayes cottage, gathered with Alan and Elizabeth around the table while Sara sulked up in her loft, Arthur and I discussed what might happen, and where. His experience as a war chief came in handy, because he could guess how the Canterbury authorities and Trained Band would react.
“If we have two thousand protestors, and I believe we will, we can’t have them all trying to enter the city through the same gate,” Arthur warned. “The guards will see them coming—the town is in a valley, after all—and simply shut the gate tight. The protest won’t be as effective if Mayor Sabine and his holiday-hating cronies stroll the streets while the demonstrators are held outside the city walls. There are six gates in all. We’ll need to have the protestors divided into six groups, each entering the city at the same time through a different gate. That way, even if one or two of the gates are closed to prevent some of us from entering, the others will still get inside the walls.”
“What about once we all are inside?” Elizabeth wanted to know. “If we’re in six different parts of the city, won’t that lessen the impact of having thousands of people involved?”
“We should all meet in one central place,” Alan said. “And, by the way, I still haven’t said you can march, my darling. It will be quite dangerous. The Trained Band might attack. It would be better for you to stay home with Sara.”
Elizabeth looked at her husband, and then said, in tones made all the more frigid by their apparent blandness, “I’m afraid I don’t require your permission. Do you intend to insult me by implying I don’t love Christmas as much as you do, or that only men have the right to take risks for the sake of a good cause?”
“You know it’s not that,” Alan sputtered. “But if things turn ugly, Sara must have a parent left to raise her.”
“Then you stay home,” Elizabeth said briskly. “Now, Layla, what time of day do you think would be right for the protestors to enter the city?”
For more than a month, we continued to plan. There were so many little things to consider, and a few big ones, too. As our numbers gradually swelled, it was no longer possible for everyone to gather at the barn for nighttime meetings. Arthur suggested that we appoint captains, who would come to the meetings and then, in their turn, inform everyone else of what had been discussed and decided.
“These captains should be the people we know best and trust most,” he added. “They will understand the need for secrecy. We need to establish some sort of password for them, or some secret sign, so we can identify ourselves to one another without anyone else knowing.”
I had an idea for that. The box of Leonardo’s lovely striped candy canes was still beside the bed Sara and I shared in the loft. I brought it down. There were several dozen canes left.
“No one else would have these,” I suggested. “They will provide perfect identification, and Mayor Sabine and his men surely won’t consider candy to be something suspicious.”
“They’re festive, too,” Elizabeth agreed. “I think they’re just perfect.”
That night, about thirty of us met back at the barn. It was much colder now, and everyone wore heavy cloaks. Arthur distributed the candy canes—no one had ever seen anything quite like them before—and explained how they were to be used. When one of us needed to meet with everyone else, he or she would leave a small drawing of a candy cane stuffed in a crevice of the big tree outside the Hayes cottage. Arthur or I would check for such messages every day, and, if we found one, we would come to the barn after dark.
“Don’t ask for a meeting unless you really need one,” Arthur added. “The more often we gather, no matter how careful we are, the greater the chance we’ll be noticed by the Puritans. Also, whenever we meet, hold out your candy cane as a sign everything is safe. If, for some reason, you think you’ve been followed or there is some other sort of danger, hold out your empty hands, and that will be a sign to the rest of us.”
Everyone remarked at the candy canes, about their color and unique shape. A few wanted to taste the candy, but I reminded them that if they ate their secret symbols, they would
no longer have them to use.
“After we’ve marched on Christmas Day, we can have the pleasure of eating this candy,” I said. “It will taste very good, I promise.” Though Arthur still was much better than me when it came to addressing the group, I was gradually becoming more comfortable in speaking to them.
Arthur and I checked the tree for messages each day, and a few days later we did find a candy cane sketch. That night, up in the barn and after showing us his candy cane, as we showed him ours, a Canterbury bootmaker named Peter told us he thought he’d mentioned the protest to the wrong person.
“He’s been coming to my shop for years and has always been very friendly, and sometime we talked a little about how sad it was that Christmas can no longer be celebrated,” Peter said. “So this past week I told him there might be some sort of demonstration in favor of the holiday on Christmas Day and would he be interested in participating? He said he might, but then he asked so many other questions, like who exactly was organizing everything, that I suddenly had the feeling he was going to run to Mayor Sabine with whatever he could find out.”
“You were right to tell us,” Arthur said. “I know it is inevitable that some rumors about what we’re doing will reach the wrong people. But we can’t let any outsiders learn too much. Now, you didn’t tell this man anything else? Very good. I expect he’ll be back in your shop tomorrow asking more questions. Just tell him that you had misunderstood; there’s no demonstration planned at all, and sorry for the confusion. Then be very careful that you’re not followed by any of the mayor’s spies. They ought to be easy to spot, with their black cloaks.”
I still could not really understand why anyone would be against Christmas. This can happen sometimes, when we believe in something so completely that we lose the ability to appreciate someone else’s right to a different opinion. Many Puritans sincerely believed God and Jesus were being dishonored by holiday celebrations. Their arguments—that the date of December 25 was based on pagan rituals, that too many people used Christmas as an excuse to get drunk or otherwise act badly—weren’t entirely wrong. In choosing to fight for Christmas, I could not, or at least should not, disregard inconvenient facts. But to me and, I believed, to almost everyone else in England, the positive things about Christmas—thanksgiving for Jesus, gifts and food to remind men, women, and children that even hard lives could include moments of joy—far outweighed the problems. How could Puritan-controlled Parliament even consider taking the holiday away from people who drew from it almost the only joy they experienced throughout the whole year?
My own resolve to save Christmas was reinforced one day in early December, when several of Margaret Sabine’s servants missed work because of illness and I had to help Janie back in the washing shed. The work there, filling and lugging buckets of water, or wringing heavy sheets and curtains by hand, was still hot and exhausting. I couldn’t help but notice Janie’s already-exhausted face had gained many more lines and creases in the five years since I’d met her. She was a tired, aging woman who told me repeatedly that she looked forward to Christmas all year long. How thrilled she had been when I invited her to the first barn meeting to discuss the Christmas Day protest, and then I had delighted her further by presenting her with a candy cane and making her one of our group’s captains. I really didn’t do this because I felt Janie had a shrewd mind and could help us plan. Rather, I just wanted to let her feel important for once in her life, which had mostly been spent doing menial work for Margaret Sabine. It was, in a sense, self-indulgence on my part, but I didn’t regret it for a moment.
Now, as I carried buckets of water over to the rinsing tub where Janie was twisting pillowcases to wring water out of them, I saw she was smiling.
“Why, are you enjoying your work today, Janie?” I asked as I poured water into the tub.
“You know why I’m smiling, Layla,” she replied, lowering her voice so no one could overhear. “Our big day is coming, and I’m quite looking forward to it!”
I dropped down beside her as she squatted by the side of the tub. “I’m glad you are, Janie, but please promise me that, on Christmas Day, you’ll be very careful. Even though I doubt it will happen, Mayor Sabine or his wife might see you taking part in the demonstration, and then you could lose this job. There will be no disgrace if you decide to hang back behind most of the marchers, so there will be less chance you’ll be identified.”
“But I won’t mind being seen!” Janie said proudly. “All my life, I’ve taken orders, and I’ve tried to do good work in return for my wages. But this will be a moment when I can speak up for something I believe in, and if it costs me my job I’ll just have to find another one, won’t I? Christmas is so wonderful, Layla, and don’t make any mistake about it. I know that even though Mr. Arthur is getting most of the attention, you’re the one who must have really thought of this, because you’re so smart and so brave, like.”
All of us enjoy compliments, and I am no exception. Janie’s words warmed me more than a little. I was never jealous of Arthur being considered the leader. He had so much more of what would one day be called charisma than I did. But it was still nice to know that someone recognized and appreciated some of my qualities, too. I gave Janie a brief hug and told her not to work too hard, because she was going to need all her strength very soon. Janie hugged me back and furtively reached into an apron pocket.
“See, I’ve got my candy cane with me,” she whispered. “Just in case I have to use it for a signal, you know.”
“Well, be certain not to let it melt around all this steam and hot water,” I laughed, and spent the rest of the day feeling happy despite the aching in my arms from hauling heavy water buckets. Janie had reminded me why saving Christmas in England was so important. I wanted to do it for people like her, who really had nothing else.
When there were only two weeks left before Christmas, Mayor Sabine instructed the town criers to begin announcing that any form of Christmas celebration was forbidden by law. Shopkeepers were required to tack up posters announcing all stores, including their own, would be open on Christmas Day. This was mostly a symbolic gesture, since so few people could read.
Arthur and I called another meeting of group captains. As each arrived at the barn, he or she brandished a candy cane. That meant no one was following them, but also represented a certain holiday spirit as well. We’d talked about the Christmas Day protest for so long, and in just fourteen more days it would happen!
“It will soon be time to decide which groups enter the city through which gates,” Arthur said. “You all know that we have selected the noon hour to begin. Everyone else in the city, including the mayor, will be up by then.”
More strategy was discussed, and all of it involved things Arthur and I had talked about earlier with Elizabeth and Alan at their kitchen table, while Sara, as usual, stayed out of sight up in the loft. We told everyone now that we would only meet once more, on the night of December 24. As always, messages for emergency meetings should be left in the crevice of the big tree.
“Be of good cheer,” Arthur called out to everyone as the meeting concluded. “It won’t be long now.”
I walked back to the cottage with Elizabeth; it had been Alan’s turn to stay behind with Sara. We talked about what might happen after the protest. Would Margaret Sabine dismiss all of us who had participated? Would the Trained Band have the nerve to arrest anyone at all? How would Parliament react when it learned two thousand men and women gathered to defy their laws against Christmas?
“I’m a little nervous, but even more excited,” Elizabeth confessed. “This may be the only time in my life that I make my voice heard. That’s a special thing, isn’t it?”
“It certainly is,” I agreed, and silently prayed that Elizabeth and all the others would not suffer too much for their moment of honest protest.
I gently turned her face toward me. “You may not care now, Sara, but someday you will. No, don’t argue. I know you as well as I know myself. Any time a grea
t wrong is being done—and taking away Christmas is completely wrong—those who know better must not allow it to happen.”
CHAPTER Nineteen
Ten days before Christmas, Sara and I took an evening stroll after dinner. It was a beautiful night. There had been some snow the day before, so the hills were covered with pure white. But the clouds had cleared, so the black night sky was decorated with hundreds of stars and a crisp quarter-moon. We pulled our cloaks tightly about us and wore mittens. It was chilly enough to make our cheeks and noses tingle, but not so cold that we were uncomfortable.
“Don’t you cherish this time of year?” I asked cheerfully. “The snow is so beautiful, and in winter I think the stars seem to shine just a little bit brighter. From my husband’s letters, I know there are stars and snow in America, but I can’t imagine them being as lovely as they are in England.”
“When you leave for America, Auntie Layla, will I ever see you again?” Sara suddenly asked. Now I knew why she had asked me to take a walk with her. I had made it clear in the past weeks that right after the winter snows melted I would be leaving Canterbury to join Nicholas in the New World. Of course, I’d already stayed much longer with the Hayes family than I’d ever expected, but five years was the absolute limit before it was obvious I was not aging as they were. Whether the Christmas protest was effective or not, I would still have to go almost immediately afterward. Following this final effort to save Christmas in England, I would help Nicholas and Felix spread holiday joy in America.
But Sara’s question tore at my heart. “No one can know the future, my love,” I answered gently. “The ocean is quite wide, but people can cross any distance if they want to badly enough. Who knows? Instead of me returning to Canterbury, you might come to the New World instead. Then we could have a wonderful reunion there!”