Kris

by J. J. Ruscella

  There are moments of life when we are humbled to ourselves, and for sure no one humbles us quite like a child. I had forgotten my delivery of the long night, and in one moment this child had robbed me of my right to wallow. I had been given a greater purpose in this life, and everyone around me had seen it but me. I had not been willing to look at my contribution to the world, and in that refusal had insulted the God-given gifts and experience with which I was blessed. I wished Sarah could be with me to see what our efforts had wrought.

  “You can have it, if it would make you feel better,” he said to me with the innocence of a lovely boy.

  I gently placed my hand upon Cai’s head. “Thank you. But I am sure Santa would want you to keep it,” I said to him and walked through the tavern door back into the morning light.

  I made my way slowly to the stable, drifting like the snow swirling in the breeze and all the while considering what I would do next in what remained of my wind-tossed life. Sebastian waited for me there with a forgiving and welcome look in his eyes and a gentle nuzzle as I approached. My bag of toys remained where I had tied it and drew me forward once more to look inside and determine what my destiny might be.

  “These are the last of our toys,” I said to Sebastian, who snorted his acknowledgement and his insistence I put them to good use.

  “I don’t know, dear fellow,” I said to him. “Could we have really made it on our own?”

  Sebastian whinnied and stomped his hooves, emphatic in his desire to see the toys delivered.

  “It will be challenging,” I said to him. “We would have to go back up that mountain.”

  Sebastian reared up into the air and cut at the breeze with his massive hooves, lurching and snorting in anticipation of departure.

  “You’re right,” I said. “I cannot forget that you will be with me.”

  And, with that, I secured the bag of toys on his pommel, leapt onto his back, and shouted, “Let’s go, good friend. Go!”

  Sebastian burst from the stable at a mighty pace and raced into the snowy confusion outside. Ahead, I could just make out the misty image of that great and threatening mountain awaiting our return in the distance.

  The deep blue twilight of the northern winter day surrounded us as Sebastian drove forward up the mountain, buffeted by the wind and ever-changing snow.

  Up the trail we surged without a second thought, hugging the mountain wall to stay as far from the perilous drop-off as we ought.

  In my mind I could see a vision of my home and the Sami people. They had befriended me and adopted my challenges as their own. They brought clever solutions and backbreaking efforts to meet the looming demands of my great journey of giving. They had struggled so hard and with so much love to help me answer the needs that drove me. They worked together in a fury of activity that far exceeded the one day’s challenges this mountain trail would now present.

  I could see Pel in his vast wisdom and cunning laying out a path for me within my thoughts. I could hear his powerful drumming and recall the Yoik he once sang in my name. That song now pounded in my veins and echoed against the walls of the mountains surrounding me. I could feel the strength of his people, my people, and the belief of the children inspire my strength and spur me forward on this day’s last delivery.

  Time seemed to open its arms to me and pull us forward in its mystical embrace as without a second thought Sebastian reached the great chasm in the mountain trail and leapt into the air, sailing, soaring, flying, he and I, as we became one with the sky. All around the wolves howled in awe at the force we had become as they watched us float right by.

  Time, place, and the fear once etched upon my face were distant now from all that lay ahead as Sebastian finally brought us back to earth to land on the other side in the cresting and billowing snow.

  Knee-deep in powder, Sebastian remained relentless in his venture up the mountainside. I heard the distant sound of bells that reinvigorated both Sebastian and me. We took the last thirty feet up the hill one lurching, powerful leap at a time.

  There at our pinnacle we saw the remains of an old and burnt-out village that once had been my home and the flickering amber candlelight of a newly built cabin that had made this place its own.

  Illuminated by the gentle starlight on the mountain’s other side, white smoke curled from the cabin’s chimney, and on the railings of its porch hung a leather strip of sleigh bells that fluttered in the wind.

  With exhilarated and determined hearts, Sebastian and I made our way down to the cabin and to the depths of my distant memories.

  Here, where everything once had been destroyed, new life had begun. I vowed that I would embrace this new image given me, built upon the love, effort, and sacrifice of so many. I pledged I would work to be worthy of this title, this mantle of the “Santa.”

  I pulled Sebastian to a stop in the trees near the hill and cautioned him to wait for me in silence. He stroked the ground in gentle acceptance as I made my way quietly toward the cabin with a magnificent toy dancing bear that I hoped would thrill any child, whether girl or boy.

  I placed it on the windowsill with caution and backed away slowly to watch the moon illuminate its rightness.

  And just as quickly, I was gone.

  Sebastian and I returned to the mountaintop and gazed out over the starlit night and the countryside below.

  I looked back on all the memories I had made here, all the glories and joys of those lost days, and the crucible of experiences that had forged and formed my life and character. My coat billowed in the wind as the remembrances of things past fluttered in my mind.

  Sebastian and I rode along the trail to the twisted, gnarled tree. “This is where I left my childhood,” I said to Sebastian. “This is where I set about to shape my destiny and the destiny of my brothers and sisters. This is where my life began.”

  I had made this passage back to a place where all seemed lost. Where love was both salvation and the sum of all its cost. Now I could say with certainty that even the pain of all things past had significance and value to me here at last, in the way it laid the pathway to tomorrow. The triumph I experienced would forever be in the joys and laughter of children on Christmas morning.

  Our journey back to the Sami village blessed me with memories of all the love that I had known, and thoughts of how that love had shaped my life and the ways that I had grown.

  Life would be different now, to be sure, but I owed it to dear Sarah to continue with our dreams. I tried not to focus on the impending loneliness of the coming years. It was inevitable, and I decided I would wait for those days and strive not to fuel the fires of what was to come. From the ashes of my past and the flaws of my experience she had built with me a family beyond our imagination.

  All the children were ours. Ours to bring joy. Ours to care for. All the children of the earth are our family, and I was dumbfounded that the world did not carry this inherent awareness. Why were not all brought up to understand this simple truth from early childhood? This profound understanding consumed my thoughts for most of my passage home.

  As we came at last upon the Sami village, I paused and prepared to enter my home, now absent my wife.

  The snow here was piled high and wide. I walked Sebastian inside the stable mound so he might rest after our mighty journey and rubbed the weary soreness from his overworked muscles. “Thank you, dear friend.”

  It was the last year he would ride on the great delivery with me. Now that I had gone back to the mountains, I would return every year, and the horses were just not built for that terrain. The next year I would expand my list of children even farther. A new sleigh was to be built, and I would come to find that Pel’s reindeer were to become my reliable companions on my yearly deliveries. But that is a story for a later time. Thankfully my day was not yet complete and my belief in miracles was once again to be fulfilled.

  At the entry to my home, I collected broken pieces of the cradle that still lay there like the splinters of what I once imagine
d would be my life. Then I threw open the door to a glorious vision.

  “Sarah!”

  Sarah sat bundled in my big rocking chair beside the fire, very much alive. Pel, sleeping in a chair beside the door with Enok snoring at his feet, jolted awake. Gabriella took a steaming cup from Sarah’s hand and gently touched her shoulder.

  My heart leapt with joy. I ran to Sarah, collapsing at her feet, and wrapped my arms around her knees.

  “Gently,” Gabriella cautioned me and smiled kindly. My tears began to swell as she signaled Pel and Enok and led them out the door.

  I held my dearest Sarah as so many times before. “My love.”

  A small cry escaped from her lips, and she began to sob. “I can never give you a family Kris,” she whispered through her tears. “I can never give you a child.”

  “No, no, no, my love.” I said quietly as I stroked her face and hair. “We have more children than we could ever dream of.”

  I watched realization ignite in her eyes.

  “Yes,” Sarah whispered.

  “What would I do without you? Who else would dare to believe this dream of ours could really come true?”

  “The children, Kris. The children will always believe in you.” And we broke into gentle, tearful laughter as we held each other.

  “How will we ever take care of them all?” Sara asked most sincerely.

  “We simply must live forever.”

  “And how, my love, do you plan on accomplishing that?” she asked now with a small smile.

  Playfully I tweaked her nose and teased, “Don’t stop believing in me now.”

  The world continued to spin, and the snowflakes continued to swirl, and we continued to deliver fine toys each Christmas to our children as our world continued to grow.

  Chapter 8

  Comfort and Joy

  Crackles of orange and red flames licked into the darkness from the stone fireplace of an old, wintered wooden cottage. Wrapping the mantle were sprigs of crisp evergreen and boughs of holly tied together by colorful, bright ribbons. Above the hearth, hung in a row, were the long winter stockings of a boy and a girl.

  Snuggly in bed, a rough-and-tumble nine-year-old boy named Olaf lay wrapped in his covers. Surely his head was filled with dreams of Santa and his mighty sleigh that sped through the night filled with toys.

  I carefully shouldered my satchel of gifts and moved stealthily through the moonlight, my silhouette cast upon the cabin’s broad sides, my boots crunching through crisp icy snow hidden well underneath the powder.

  Inside the cabin, Olaf breathed the gentle and comforting rhythms of sleep. At the window, I laid two wrapped toys quietly down on the sill.

  Abruptly, a little girl’s face popped up in the glass, her eyes wide with exhilaration.

  “Santa!” Ona exclaimed with excitement as she threw open the windows and tumbled out into the snow. “I knew you’d come! Daddy said ‘Go to sleep,’ but I knew you would!”

  Ona ran barefoot to the reindeer that stood attached to the sleigh. “What are these?!” she asked joyfully. “Can I touch him?” Then she wrapped her arms around him, patting and scratching his neck and ears.

  “He’s a reindeer,” I replied as the reindeer she petted moved his hooves to the rhythm of her scratching.

  “Why is he dancing?” she asked with delight.

  “I suppose the joy of Christmas has made him merry, not to mention he likes being scratched behind the ears.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I’m not sure I could pronounce it for you in a word that you would understand.”

  “Dancer!” she proclaimed. “I will call him, ‘Dancer’!” And she giggled as the reindeer nibbled the back of her hair and neck.

  “I think he likes the name. Now you’d best go to sleep, little one. We don’t want your father mad at us, do we?”

  She shook her head emphatically and began to shiver as if realizing she stood barefoot in the cold for the first time. As I bent down to lift her, she asked me a sweet and honest question, profound from her simple nature as a child: “How will I know this isn’t a dream?”

  Little wooden snowflakes hung from the necks of each reindeer’s collar and tackle. I removed the snowflake from Dancer’s neck and handed it to her so that she might remember and prove to herself this memory.

  “Like a snowflake, there is no one in the world like you,” I told her as I lifted her from the snow, carrying her back to the open window. “You are unique.”

  “I am?” she asked sincerely.

  “Yes, little one,” I replied, “you are special.”

  I lifted her and placed her inside the window.

  “Santa?” she whispered as she clung to my neck. “I had a dream of Christmas, and you were in it.”

  “That’s funny,” I told her, laughing, while trying not to wake her brother, “I had a dream of Christmas, and you were in it.”

  Letting go, she ran to her bed and dove under the covers.

  “Merry Christmas, Santa,” she called back to me.

  Merry Christmas, What a beautiful sentiment. I chuckled. Merry Christmas. Yes, it was. Merry because we make it and will it to be so.

  “Merry Christmas, Ona.” I replied in a loud whisper.

  Then with a start, she sat up in bed.

  “You know my name!” She gasped.

  I gave her a wink and pushed the window shut. Christmas is much more special when it carries a little magic, and all that is required to create magic is a little mystery.

  I leapt into the sleigh as the reindeer readied to charge forward, and once more we were on our way.

  Hooves dug deep and pounded the ground in a heavy, steady beat that served as a driving rhythm that urged the team forward. Snow plowed aside, and sleigh runners sent up plumes of ice crystals that twinkled in the moonlight. Reins taut, we sailed over the pristine snow as their bulging muscles flexed and stretched while the sleigh raced ahead at dazzling speed.

  Celestial lights washed over the endless snowy white expanse, and we dashed across the glowing landscape.

  I stood boldly in the coach, chariot-style, while commanding the team to make haste through the twilight end of night and felt the icy wind kissing and pinching at my cheeks. The flapping panels of my thick, red coat floated through the endless winter wonder around us, which could only be matched in scale by the bountiful wishes we had carried with us for the dawning Christmas Day.

  After our long and challenging journey to towns and villages across the land where we shared our gifts of joy, Dancer and my other lead reindeer, whom I had now decided to call Dasher since my meeting with Ona, led the team and me home again to recover and rest. Each of the reindeer on my team had their Sami names, but Ona’s naming of Dancer had captured the heart of my antlered steed perfectly, and I decided to name each one in kind. With a little thought, I discovered that I knew the noble names deserved by each of the others; Dasher, Dancer of course, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder, and Blitzen.

  Dasher was simply the fastest in the short run. He had troubled me with many a chase when Pel and I first worked to put the reindeer in harness. We had spent weeks just choosing the finest and most suited from the herd. Prancer was the most beautiful with his flowing white mane. And he walked as if he knew it. Vixen was spirited and sprightly, although she could be fierce with her nipping bite, putting any of my team in place if they crossed her. Comet I named because he would explode through the herd, ramming and throwing any challengers with his magnificent antlers. Cupid, because he was so obviously in love with Vixen—and any other female reindeer that he happened across, for that matter. And of course Donder and Blitzen, which mean, “Thunder,” and, “Lightning,” because they were inseparable and also because they were the power that pulled the sleigh. I called to them by name, and they flew across the land as if delighting in their newly acknowledged identities.

  I was thankful we had made such progress in providing presents to so many deserving children, but I k
new there was more we could do in future years: more presents, faster progress in making them, and more children we could reach with our mission to spread happiness and celebrate the wonders of Christmas.

  Each year our great journey was both tiring and punishing, with the severity of the cold and the complications brought by winter’s unflinching grip and the vast distances we had covered. My health was challenged in the weariness I faced once we had returned safely home.

  I had left behind my well-intentioned gifts of Christmas toys, but I had also stirred up a sea of question and concern that soon would grow from the excitement Ona and Olaf expressed on Christmas morning.

  Unknown to me, a controversy was about to build in a powerful storm that would draw me into its center and envelop my past, present, and future.

  In the weak morning light that filtered through the windows of Ona’s cabin, young Olaf awoke ready for Christmas day and all the discoveries it would bring. He quickly opened the window to see what secrets he might uncover, plucking two wrapped gifts from the sill, then ran back to rouse Ona from her sleep to share his exhilaration.

  “Ona! Ona! Look, see,” he exclaimed as he jumped onto her bed and shook her awake.

  Ona rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she crawled out of bed and ran into the main room after Olaf. They danced with glee at the joy they felt this Christmas morning.

  “They’re gonna be even better than last year,” Olaf shouted as he heard a loud STOMP outside, near the cabin’s front door.

  The door swung open, and their father, Jacob, a sturdy, work-hardened family man of some thirty years, stood in the doorway. He stomped again to loosen the snow from his boots and watched the children celebrating their unknown presents.

  “That’s enough, Olaf,” Jacob said firmly. “You know the rules. The Christmas gathering first, and then you can open and play with the stranger’s gifts.”

  Jacob’s wife, Johanna, admonished him sweetly. “Jacob,” she said. “Let them play.”

  Johanna’s softer, gentler, demeanor was often used to temper Jacob’s tendency toward abrupt communication with the children.