We entered the church and discovered a couple of hundred fellow travelers who had taken shelter. The refugees ran the gamut in age from babies to old folks, representing all humanity. Even a few dogs huddled next to their masters. The church’s young pastor evidently started a calling chain among his parishioners, asking for their help. They responded quickly by braving the bitter cold and deep snow to bring us blankets, pillows, cookies, and cakes. Then a contingent stayed on to turn the fellowship hall into an impromptu restaurant by preparing hot chili, cocoa, and coffee for their disconsolate guests.
We sat around in small groups, disappointed that our anticipated plans with our loved ones had been ruined. As there were no cell phones in those days, there was a continuous long line of people impatiently waiting to use the church’s wall phone to alert relatives to their safety, to tell them where they were, and that they would not be getting home for Christmas.
Our daughter Deb brought her guitar with her. She took it out of its case and, while sitting on the gym floor, began to softly sing Christmas carols. Soon, a small group gathered around to join their voices with hers. They were to become “our group” for the rest of the time. Deb played quietly far into the night, as people began to seek out pews, hallways, or floors on which to sleep. The young minister and his wife stayed at the church with us all night. When Christmas morning dawned, he led our rumpled, dispossessed group in our own private worship service.
As the sun announced the arrival of the new day, a different batch of church members left their own Christmas preparations and plodded through the snow, bringing pancake mix, juice, and eggs to make us breakfast. romDavMany of the dispirited visitors’ thoughts traveled to the destination their bodies could not reach, and they envisioned blazing Christmas trees surrounded by piles of unopened presents. Since our new acquaintances replaced the families we could not be with, we spent the morning comparing stories. When noontime found us still snowbound, a second crew arrived to fix lunch. A mechanic left his warm home and family to work outside in the zero weather, jumping cars that had frozen overnight. A filling station owner interrupted his Christmas celebration to open his station so we could have gas in our tanks in case the roads became passable.
Late in the afternoon, word arrived that one lane of a road had been cleared, so our family decided to try completing the journey to Indianapolis. After a harrowing six-hour drive on slippery roads, we arrived at our grandparents’ home late Christmas night. Although it was not the holiday we had planned, we all knew it was one we would remember when all the other ones were forgotten. We received a gift that could not fit under a tree, wrapped in the caring compassion of those church members. They put aside their own comfort and traditions to welcome us at their “inn,” not just with food, but with cheer and loving concern. We witnessed the true spirit of Christmas, of giving instead of receiving, by a congregation who set their own celebrations and enjoyment aside to care for strangers in their tiny town of Morocco, Indiana.
Martha Ajango
Reprinted by permission of Off the Mark and Mark Parisi © 2007 Mark Parisi.
In Touch with My Inner Elf
It was three weeks before Christmas, and my life looked pretty bleak. I was cold. I was broke. And I was worried.
My small film production company was on its deathbed.
My business partner left for Berlin to visit her lover.
Everyone was shopping and leaving for the holidays. But I had big plans, too. No, I wasn’t traveling back to New York or visiting my parents in Florida. I was going to stay in Nashville, go to my office every day, stare at the phone that never rang, and feel tremendously sorry for myself. I mean, did I really have any other choice?
One morning, I was pacing in front of my desk, scanning through the newspaper, and right in front of my face was a help-wanted ad. UPS needed Santa’s helpers to sit in the little jump seat next to the driver. When the driver made a delivery stop, the Santa’s helper would deliver a package. This appealed to me. It seemed like an interesting job. It wouldn’t be overwhelming. It would be Zen-like, nice and simple. When there were no more packages, and the back of the truck was empty, the workday would be over. It would be a gig that was totally different from my usual job. I wouldn’t have to be creative. I wouldn’t have to deal with crazy clients. I wouldn’t have to fulfill a million responsibilities. All I had to do was lift a maximum of sixty-five pounds, run up to someone’s front door, and deliver Christmas packages to people who would be smiling and anticipating my arrival with joy. Plus, I’d make $9.50 an hour.
That morning I drove to UPS to apply for the gig. I could hardly contain my excitement. I walked in, dressed from head to toe in black Italian designer wear. The woman at the desk looked at me quizzically. I told her I was applying for a Santa’s helper position. She asked me if I was sure and looked at me like I was crazy. I told her I was never more certain of anything in my entire life. I told her about my company, how it was on the verge of bankruptcy. I told her that my business partner was in Berlin with her lover. I told her I was forty-five-and-a-half, but I could easily lift sixty-five pounds, and I pushed up my sleeve and flexed my biceps. I explained to her how much I needed this job at this moment in my life, that this was more than a job to me—it was the key to my sanity. I put aside my pride and dignity, and I begged her to please let me work as a Santa’s helper. When I finished my plea, she was practically in tears. Then she smiled at me and said those three magical words: “Welcome to UPS!” I immediately got fitted for my uniform. Even though I would have preferred that the jacket and pants were more fitted, and I knew that brown was definitely not my color, I felt like a million bucks.
Bright and early the next morning, I was riding shotgun in a huge UPS truck filled with 175 packages. Arthur was at the wheel. He had worked with UPS for over eighteen years. Arthur never thought he’d be a UPS driver. He studied art history in college, and his specialty was the Italian Renaissance era. He became a university professor for several years and then discovered he could make more money driving a UPS truck. In between deliveries, Arthur and I talked about literature, art, opera, and PBS. His route took us through rural areas and housing developments where all the modest two-story red-bricked houses looked alike.
That first day, I jumped in and out of the truck over one hundred times for over twelve hours. When I got home, I collapsed. I couldn’t remember ever working so hard or ever feeling so sore. I drifted into a deep sleep, wondering if I would be able to get up and do it all over again the next day.
Somehow, I did. I got up day after day, and by the end of the week, it got easier.
Dogs would chase us, and sometimes Arthur threatened them with the big stick he kept in the back. But for the most part, people greeted us with big smiles and open arms. I was totally into being the “UPS Lady.” People knew if I knocked at their door that I came bearing gifts. I brought people happiness. And that was enough to make me happy, too.
My second week, I was split up between two drivers. In the mornings I rode with Pete through the blue-collar, working-class neighborhoods. Pete had just turned twenty-six. I looked at him and thought, My God, I could be his mother! He was polite and protective and kept calling me “Ma’am,” which irritated me. When he started to treat me like his mother and took an eighty-five-pound package out of my hands, that’s when I’d had enough. I had to put a stop to it for my own self-respect and in the name of sisterhood. I needed to prove to him I wasn’t some middle-aged wimp, so I grabbed that eighty-five-pound package right out of his twenty-six-year-old hands, whisked it off, and delivered it, shattering Pete’s stereotype about women being weak and helpless. After we’d cleared up this issue, every morning between deliveries, he’d talk, I’d listen, and then he’d ask me for advice. Pete would actually turn off his heavy metal music and listen closely to me, like I was some wise, old sage.
During my last week, TJ was at the wheel. Having been a UPS driver for over twenty-two years, TJ had seniority and therefore
drove the best route—the most beautiful areas and upscale neighborhoods in Nashville. We’d enter private roads and driveways with no-trespassing signs and find ourselves on incredible estates with acres and acres of rolling hills dotted with running horses. Or we’d drive up one of those mysterious, long, and winding private driveways that led up to the top of a mountain, and there would stand a tremendous home that was right out of the pages of Architectural Digest, built from imported wood and custom-tinted glass, with Italian marble floors and an Olympic-sized swimming pool in the middle of the foyer. I was a tourist in a town where I had lived for thirteen years, discovering places I’d never known existed. I felt like I was traveling in a foreign country, seeing things for the first time, with all my senses geared up—taking it all in. Every day I was in awe of the beauty, in awe of the moment. For the first time in a long time, I was living life in the present tense and enjoying what it had to offer. And TJ was my fellow companion and travel guide.
TJ was a year younger than me. He told me his wife didn’t understand him and that he adored his two precious little daughters. He beamed when he showed me the photo of two beautiful little blonde girls smiling at the camera. As we drove along the black-posted fence of a picture-perfect Tennessee walking horse farm, TJ told me horrifying stories of his time spent in Vietnam. There was the army buddy who died in his arms, the villages he helped burn down, and the innocent women and children he saw die. And now, after all of these years, his nightmares kept recurring. He planned to retire in a few years and move to Florida because it was always sunny, and he wanted to show his girls the ocean. By the end of my last UPS week, TJ and I had become old friends. We’d talk and reminisce about a lot of things that happened in our lifetime—Vietnam, Woodstock, the assassination of President Kennedy, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix.
On my last day, TJ and the other drivers bought me lunch at Captain Dee’s. The parking lot was filled with UPS trucks. I was the only woman, the only Yankee, and the only Jew—yet we had bonded, me and the boys in brown.
TJ and I worked late that night. It was Christmas Eve, and we finished delivering the last of 223 packages. Our final stop was The Loveless Café, a funky but famous fried-chicken-with-biscuits-’n’-gravy restaurant out in the middle of nowhere. Right beside The Loveless Café was a small white trailer. An old, beat-up plaid couch with springs poking out rested on a pile of weeds, next to an old rusty washing machine. Inside, the trailer was filled with boxes and boxes of Loveless Café’s blackberry and strawberry jams, peach preserves, and country hams that had to be shipped out before Christmas. TJ and I loaded the boxes onto the truck in silence. There was sadness in the silence—the sadness that comes with saying goodbye. The day was over. TJ closed the back doors of the truck and went back inside the trailer to get the paperwork signed. I waited outside. I stood on the porch of that trailer and watched the most glorious red and gold sunset spill over The Loveless Café—and me and my brown UPS uniform. And, at that moment, I knew that whatever was next, whatever lay ahead, I was going to get through it just fine. Santa’s helper couldn’t have asked for a better gift than that.
Loree Gold
It’s the Simple Things
Ken and I have been a host family for Czech exchange students who come to study at Kansas State University for the past six or seven years. The students live on their own, but we are there to answer questions, show them around town when they arrive, and invite them to our home for dinner now and then. They lead busy lives, but we e-mail or phone to keep in touch.
This year, we have two young women who are both majoring in the study of architecture. Jana and Klara attend university in Prague, but both come from smaller towns in the Czech Republic. They arrived in the United States the day after new airline regulations regarding what can be carried on and what must be checked went into effect. The day before they left home, their luggage had to be sorted out and rearranged to meet the new regulations. Then there was a paperwork snafu in New York when they went through immigration and customs.
Before they knew what had happened, they were taken to a tiny room filled to overflowing with other immigrants who had problems of one kind or another. Most of the people in there were from Asian countries or the Arab world. These two tall, blonde girls huddled together in a corner, expecting the worst. Finally, the paperwork got sorted out, and they had to find a new flight to Kansas City since they’d missed their connecting flight with the delay. The customs officials in New York refused to help them, so they marched off to find the counter for their airline and managed to get on another flight with the help of a kind and helpful ticket agent.
Meanwhile, we knew only that they had not arrived as originally scheduled. Once they knew what flight they would be on, they did call, and a full twenty-four hours beyond the expected time, they arrived at our door— desperately tired, longing for a shower, and hungry after traveling nearly two full days and nights. They spent their first week with us in our home while looking for housing and getting registered on campus. We spent the time getting to know each other, and taking them to meetings and testing places on campus, as well as orienting them to our community. At the end of the week, they had found a little house to rent with two other Czech students and were ready to begin the semester’s classes.
That hot August week seems so long ago. In early December, I invited Klara and Jana and their two housemates to come to dinner to celebrate Christmas. Most of the exchange students travel around the United States during the holiday break, so we try to provide an evening of Christmas cheer for them each year, as it is often the only Christmas celebration they will have. It is heartwarming to watch the wonder and joy on their faces when they walk into our home and see the decorated tree and other Christmas symbols throughout the house. We have a special meal and linger at the table to talk about Christmas traditions in their country and ours. I placed a candy cane above each dinner plate, and this year’s group was as surprised as all the others in years past. Candy canes are not known in the Czech Republic, and the students like them. I guess it is because they are something different. “What do they taste like?” they usually ask. Try to describe “peppermint” sometime . . . it’s not easy! One of the young men said he was going to Wal-Mart to buy many candy canes to send home to Prague for Christmas.
Turns out it’s the simple things that mean something to these young people far from their families and their own country—a home-cooked meal, conversation, knowing someone cares about them, and maybe having a candy cane for the first time. For Ken and me, it’s another simple thing: we end up receiving far more than we give with all of the students we’ve had. Not every Christmas gift comes in a box with wrapping paper and a bow.
Nancy Julien Kopp
The First Christmas
This was my first Christmas alone. I had known it would be difficult, but I had no idea that it was going to be this hard. John had died in September, on the twenty-fifth in fact, so Christmas was three months to the day since his death. I tried hard not to feel sorry for myself but was only successful part of the time.
I learned to play bridge, bought tickets to the symphony, and enrolled in a weekly watercolor class. These things helped pass the time, it was true, but in many ways I felt like I was just going through the motions. I had dreaded the last day of November, knowing that when I tore off the calendar page on the thirtieth it would mean that Christmas was just around the corner, and it would be the first one in forty-six years without my beloved Johnny.
I heaved myself out of the La-Z-Boy with a deep sigh. No sense dwelling on it. I had to stop feeling sorry for myself. Thank the Lord, my daughter Wendy still lived in town, although she had been talking more and more about moving out east since her divorce from Dave. She felt there were more job opportunities in the advertising field out there. Wendy was a go-getter, all right. I could have predicted that she wouldn’t stay in Swan River for long, even if her marriage to Dave had worked out. Well, she was here in town for the time being anyway,
and at least we’d have each other’s company for Christmas dinner.
With that thought in mind, I propelled myself toward the kitchen where the turkey lolled nakedly in the roaster, ready for stuffing. I’d make the stuffing, peel the potatoes, and start on the pie crust. Wendy was making candied yams and some new recipe for blood pudding, of all things! John would have hated it. Truth to tell, so would I.
But, sweet man that he was, John would have eaten it anyway, grinning all the while so as not to hurt Wendy’s feelings. Such a kind heart. A prince among men. Oh, how I missed him!
A shrill ring startled me from my melancholy reverie. Quickly, I wiped my hands on my apron and reached for the phone. It was Wendy.
“Hi, Mom,” my daughter said breathlessly. “I’m on the run here, so I won’t keep you. I just want to know whether you’d mind it terribly if we had a couple of guests—some friends of mine. I know it’s short notice, but you always cook enough for an army anyway, and I know you’ll enjoy meeting them. So, how about it? Is it okay?”
I suddenly felt so tired. I really didn’t want to entertain strangers. Just getting through the day was a monumental effort by itself. Reluctantly, I agreed, but Wendy, a sensitive girl from the time she was a child, knew that I didn’t mean it. Despite that fact, Wendy rolled along enthusiastically.
“Great then, Mom. I’ll pick them up on my way over. See you at six o’clock.”
The line went dead before I could ask my daughter exactly who she was bringing, much less say good-bye. Well, it didn’t much matter, I supposed. I would put on a brave face and soldier through it.
The rest of the day flew by, it seemed. There was so much for me to do, what with the cooking, the baking, arranging the centerpiece, and getting the table set. Then I still had myself to get ready—no small task these days. Wendy was always telling me that I was still an attractive woman, and that any man would be thrilled to be seen in my company. She was such a flatterer, that one. No wonder she was successful in advertising!
A Chicken Soup for the Soul Christmas Page 2