The Joy of Christmas

by Amy Newmark

  Grandmas don’t just say “that’s nice” — they reel back and roll their eyes and throw up their hands and smile. You get your money’s worth out of grandmas.

  ~Author Unknown

  Christmas shopping with my fourteen-year-old grandson was a new experience for me. He had a long list of family and friends for whom he wanted to buy gifts, and he had jotted down some ideas. He brought money he had earned himself.

  My role was to drive him to the requested stores and occasionally (when asked) give my opinion on an item. It was a sharp contrast from previous years when he seemed to disappear down the toy aisle, scribbling a list of the things he wanted.

  I enjoyed the adult camaraderie and marveled at how much he had grown up as we started toward the door of our third store. He stopped suddenly at a display of wallets, and admired a black leather trifold one. After thoroughly examining it he set it back down and courteously held the door for me as we continued out of the store.

  I wondered if he wanted the wallet for himself. I needed a gift idea. I didn’t even have to ask.

  “Gramama, I really need a new wallet,” he said as he pulled a shabby billfold from his pocket.

  “Score,” I thought to myself. I would go back and get the new wallet for him later. But I wanted to make sure I got the right one, so I casually asked, “So what features do you look for in a wallet?”

  “MONEY,” he replied.

  I guess he really had grown up!

  ~Kathie Slief

  Eli Has Left the Building

  Being a family means you are a part of something very wonderful. It means you will love and be loved for the rest of your life.

  ~Lisa Weedn

  “I don’t want Eli to go,” whispered six-year-old Madi, the youngest of our three girls. It was December 23rd, almost time for Eli, our house elf, to return to the North Pole.

  Madi looked up at Eli perched on the fireplace mantel, his lips frozen in a joyous smile that reached right up his rosy cheeks. She crawled onto the couch with me, squirming her way under my quilt and resting in my lap. I stroked her hair. “Eli will always be part of our family. Enjoy the time we have with him now so it’s special,” I said. She still looked worried.

  “I’ll miss him,” she said.

  “I bet he’ll miss you too.”

  Eli was named after Madi’s kindergarten crush, and we were now stuck with the name even after she decided that the human Eli was icky. He arrived every year on the first of December to observe our three girls and report back to Santa on their behavior.

  Eli takes an interest in our family activities. When we painted acrylic Christmas trees and Santa Claus’s boots, we left out a brush and canvas for Eli. While snug in our beds, Eli painted us a picture of a wrapped present and signed his name. We hung his canvas on the wall with ours.

  We dug out our big book of short Christmas stories to read a few each night leading up to Christmas. One morning we caught Eli sitting with the book in his lap turned to the first page of the next story. Eli likes to hear holiday stories just like us.

  When we baked chocolate chip cookies to prepare for Santa’s arrival, we awoke in the morning to find Eli had decorated them with red and green sprinkles.

  Madi looked forward to getting up every morning to see what Eli had done overnight.

  On Christmas Eve morning, Madi woke me with urgent news. Her little face was almost touching mine and her eyes were wide as saucers. “Mommmm,” she whispered breathlessly.

  “What, honey? You hungry? What time is it?”

  “There’s a big present in the living room. Can I open it?”

  “Um, really?” I swung my legs to the floor. Madi grabbed my hand and led me to the living room. Sure enough, there sat a large box wrapped in shiny red and white striped paper and topped with a big red bow. I sent Madi to wake up everyone else.

  Then, with everyone gathered around the mystery present, I lifted the tag and read aloud, “To my family. From Eli, your house elf. Thank you for welcoming me into your home and for letting me join your family activities. I’ve never had a family before. Now I can say I do. I will miss you all so much this year. I can’t wait until next December. I hope we paint again. That was my favorite. I cannot wait to report all the good things about your family to Santa. Love, Eli.”

  “We’ll miss you too, Eli!” Madi said. The three sisters went to work tearing off the paper and opening the top of the box.

  The girls shrieked as they pulled out the gifts inside. There were Christmas-themed pajamas for each member of our family, popcorn, cocoa and a Christmas movie. They ran off to try on their pajamas.

  I looked up at Eli’s favorite perch on the Christmas tree, now empty.

  “Thanks, Eli,” I said. I looked forward to sharing our traditions again with him the next year. I would miss him, too.

  ~Mary Anglin-Coulter

  Home Sweet Home

  The light is what guides you home, the warmth is what keeps you there.

  ~Ellie Rodriguez

  Sitting through Sunday morning church in a crowded hotel room wasn’t my two-year-old daughter’s idea of a good time. I scooped her onto my lap. She squirmed in protest and scolded me in Cantonese. Fortunately, Hannah wasn’t the only antsy little girl. Several other couples from our adoption group entertained their own fidgety daughters.

  I grabbed the Christmas book I’d brought from home. Home. After twenty hours on a plane and two weeks of traveling on buses and boats to various areas of China, I was exhausted and so ready to go home. We just needed to get our visas and final paperwork, and then we could take our daughter home.

  Hannah flipped open the book to a picture of baby Jesus. I knew she didn’t understand, but I wanted to at least introduce her to Christmas. It seemed strange. Christmas was only a few days away, yet nothing around us looked like it.

  “Are there any prayer requests?” The pastor interrupted my thoughts.

  My husband lifted his hand. “Hannah.”

  Since the day we first met her, Hannah had been fighting a raspy cough and itchy rash. The orphanage gave us a tube of white cream. So far, it hadn’t helped.

  She wiggled on my lap and scratched her tummy. Poor little girl, I thought. Not sick enough to go to a hospital, but sick enough to feel miserable. Doug and I planned to take her to our family doctor as soon as we returned home.

  We ended the service with a few Christmas carols. My mind drifted back home. By now, family members would be almost finished with last-minute holiday details. Gifts would be wrapped. Cookies baked. I could almost smell the delicious aroma of my mom’s homemade potato soup. Every Christmas Eve my siblings and I gathered at Mom’s for soup and presents after church. I longed to share those simple family traditions with our new daughter.

  I touched Hannah’s forehead. Still warm. Sadly, Christmas Eve at Grandma’s house would have to wait until next year.

  Two nights later we arrived in Guangzhou. As we drove to the hotel I stared out the window, mesmerized. I couldn’t believe it. The entire city was decorated for Christmas. Garland and ribbon covered festive trees. Streets sparkled with colorful lights. The beauty took my breath away. Now more than ever, I longed to celebrate Hannah’s first Christmas with our families.

  Then we heard wonderful news: our visas came early! My mind started spinning. Maybe we could change our flights. Hannah could see the doctor sooner and get started on the proper medicine. She might even feel better by Christmas. Leaving early could make a huge difference.

  All morning I called the airline. Each time I spoke with a different person, yet always heard the same disappointing news. “Sorry Ma’am, we can’t change your ticket. It’s too close to Christmas.”

  My hope of spending a traditional Christmas at home was crushed right along with my spirits. I decided to get some fresh air. I’d spotted a gift shop within walking distance of the hotel. Maybe I could find something to keep Hannah occupied in the hotel room.

  I stood in the gift shop and gaze
d at a shelf full of toys. Sweet, little baby dolls. Brightly-colored stacking blocks. I picked up a package of rattles and shook them in my hand.

  Suddenly, my eyes filled with tears. For years my husband and I had prayed for a child of our own. Now here we were with our own precious little girl. What more did we need? It really didn’t matter if we were home, in China or sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. We could celebrate our first Christmas as a family anywhere!

  Now that I was reconciled to spending Christmas in China, what did I hear on the way back to my room but that two other couples from our group had been allowed to change their airline tickets? Doug and I looked at one another. What did we have to lose? I called the airline one more time.

  “Listen,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I have a sick little girl that needs to get to the States and see a doctor. Now I know you can do this. You did it for my friends, and you can do it for us.”

  I plopped onto a chair as annoying music blared into my ear while I waited on hold. Doug gave me a questioning look.

  Within a minute, the lady returned to the line. “I think I can help you.”

  I jumped to my feet. “Yes!” I’d reached the right person. We were finally going home.

  That Christmas Eve we attended church with our family. I gazed down at my beautiful little girl in her red velvet dress and black, shiny shoes. After two days of antibiotics, Hannah felt much better even though she still didn’t sit quietly.

  Later, at Mom’s house, I changed Hannah into comfortable clothes, including a brand-new sweatshirt from my grandmother displaying a little house and the words “Home Sweet Home.” The words on the front seemed so appropriate, and Hannah, now twenty three, still treasures it.

  I slipped the sweatshirt over Hannah’s head. “Home Sweet Home,” my mom said, reading it aloud. She patted Hannah’s head. “Are you glad to be home, Hannah?” Hannah didn’t respond. She just smiled, grabbed her spoon and shoveled in some more of Grandma’s delicious potato soup.

  ~Stacie Chambers

  St. Lucia Surprise

  Grandchildren are the dots that connect the lines from generation to generation.

  ~Lois Wyse

  Fffft. The match flares orange, creating a pinpoint of light in the December darkness. It is 6:30 a.m. and my ten-year-old twin daughters and I stand in my mother-in-law’s driveway, shivering. Underneath their white dresses, the girls wear long johns and winter boots, but still, without coats, hats, and mittens, they’re uncomfortable. We’d better get moving.

  I light the candle and hand it to Chloe.

  “What about my crown?” Leah whispers.

  From the car, I get her headpiece — a crown of plastic candles topped with battery-operated bulbs — and set it on her head. Then I grab the boom box. “Let’s go.”

  The crown and candle glow as we creep, giggling conspiratorially, up the steps to Sylvia’s front door.

  “Do you think she’s awake?” Chloe asks.

  The house is dark. “I don’t think so.”

  “What if she doesn’t hear the doorbell?” Leah worries.

  There’s only one way to find out. One of us presses it. After a minute passes with no response, I knock. Loudly.

  Soon we hear footsteps. Fingers trembling with excitement, I press the play button on the boom box and the strains of a Swedish holiday folk song fill the starry morning.

  “San-ta Lu-ciiiia, Santa Lucia.”

  When the chorus starts, we sing along as Sylvia, wearing a bathrobe and looking sleep-rumpled, opens the door.

  ***

  As mothers-in-law go, Sylvia is a keeper. She’s easygoing, loves to spend time with my girls, and never criticizes my housekeeping. But we are very different. She’s a go-getter; she has loads of friends, and is usually out with one of them — seeing a play, attending a quilt show, or biking a wooded trail. I, on the other hand, have a few close, trusted friends, abhor busyness (and biking), and can easily spend hours in the bathtub reading a book. At times, our differences have led to misunderstandings.

  Several years ago, Sylvia planned a picnic. We were to drive an hour to a park where we’d spend the morning with my husband’s sister and her family. When the day arrived, everyone was ready to go except me. It had been a busy week, and I needed time to refuel. My husband was fine with my last-minute decision to stay home, but when he returned from the picnic, I found out that Sylvia hadn’t been.

  He repeated part of their conversation: “Doesn’t Sara like us?” Sylvia had asked. “Why doesn’t she come to more family events?”

  “Of course she likes you,” he had said. “She just needs a lot of alone time.”

  I pressed my husband for details. “What did she say to that?”

  “I don’t think she understood,” he said. “You know what she’s like; she hates being alone for more than a few hours.”

  I felt hurt, defective, and a bit anxious — not the best state of mind for resolving a conflict. But remaining silent had caused problems for me before. That’s why, when Sylvia stopped by later that evening, I took a deep, wobbly breath and confronted her.

  “I hear you think I don’t like you.”

  She looked uncertain. “Oh, it’s not that. I just… I just don’t understand why you don’t come to things sometimes. Explain it to me.”

  So I tried to explain my introverted personality. In the end, she accepted what I said. But in spite of the hug that ended our conversation, I was left with a nagging inner need to show my affection for her.

  Several months later, my daughters and I visited the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis. On our tour, we learned about St. Lucia Day, celebrated on December 13th in Sweden.

  In the Swedish tradition, the oldest daughter in the family wakes her parents on St. Lucia morning (one of the darkest days of the years) by singing to them. Wearing a white dress and a crown of candles on her head, she serves buns, cookies, and coffee. Other children in the family carry candles or star-tipped wands.

  I’d heard about this holiday from Sylvia; she had celebrated it years before at the Swedish Lutheran church in her South Dakota hometown. Often, she’d recounted how she’d worn the crown (lit with real candles!) and served cookies to the ladies of the church on St. Lucia Day — which also happened to be her birthday.

  Remembering that, I had an idea on the way home from the Institute: “Girls, wouldn’t it be fun if we showed up at Grandma’s door on St. Lucia morning?”

  I bought white dresses and a crown online and borrowed a Swedish music CD from the library. We baked pepparkakor and luciakatter — ginger cookies and saffron-flavored buns — and picked up Scandinavian-blend coffee beans at the grocery store. On St. Lucia Eve, we laid everything out, ready for an early start the next morning. It was going to be an excellent surprise.

  ***

  But now, as we wait for Sylvia to answer the door, I feel a pang of uncertainty. Will she think this is as fun an idea as I do? After all, we are so very different.

  Her reaction puts my fears to rest.

  “Oh, oh, oh!” she cries, her face beaming as she reaches out to hug us.

  Inside, we sit around her kitchen table. While munching cookies and buns and drinking coffee with lots of milk and sugar, the girls excitedly rehash every moment of the morning for Sylvia: what time they got up, how we worried she might not be home, how cold it was standing in her driveway. After laughing and talking for an hour, we go out into a frigid, sunny morning, feeling warmed by her declaration that we’ve given her the best birthday surprise ever.

  That was four Decembers ago. We’ve been “surprising” Sylvia ever since, and we intend to continue. The tradition has changed a bit over time; we sing the song ourselves (in English) instead of playing it on the boom box, the girls trade off wearing the candle crown, and we all go out to breakfast at our favorite pancake house afterward.

  However it looks, our December 13th visit to Sylvia’s house has become one of my favorite holiday traditions.
Besides being unusual and celebrating my daughters’ ethnic heritage, it gives me a chance to remind my mother-in-law that, even though I’m not a social butterfly, I like being with her.

  Even at six-thirty in the morning.

  ~Sara Matson

  Nice and Ugly

  Thanks for going to the holiday office party in a Christmas sweater that’s more embarrassing than my behavior.

  ~Author Unknown

  My dad knew that Mom only wanted one thing for Christmas: clothes. But my poor father had no idea what to buy her. The year before she had returned almost every present he had given her.

  He decided I would help him. I was fifteen years old, opinionated and fashion-minded. We set out on a shopping expedition and it was going great. We had spent the entire day buying clothes Mom would love.

  Then Dad saw the display of Christmas sweaters. They were hideous — some red, some green, some glittery, others depicting cute, fuzzy forest creatures in the snow.

  Dad said that his one success every year was when he bought Mom the ugliest, gaudiest Christmas sweater he could find. Over my objections, he purchased one with a Christmas tree that lit up and played music.

  On Christmas morning, Dad and I exchanged glances as Mom began to open the ugly sweater. She gasped and I thought, “Ah ha! I knew it!” I smirked at my father.

  “How cute!” Mom said, and lifted the sweater from the box, holding it in front of her. She swooned when Dad showed her the button that lit the tree up and played the “O Christmas Tree” tune.

  Dad grinned at me and winked.

  Mom loved all her presents that year. The pants fit. The dresses were the right color. The blouses were age appropriate. So every year thereafter, my father and I would hit the malls together and spend the entire day shopping for Mom’s Christmas presents. As I got older, married and had a child of my own, our tradition still continued. This was an annual father-daughter date.

  Years after that first Christmas shopping trip for Mom, Dad and I stood in the department store arguing over Christmas sweaters, yet again. I had spent every one of the last eleven years attempting to stop my dad from buying ugly Christmas sweaters for Mom.