Chicken Soup for the Soul Christmas (19 page)

The ranch was a lovely place, especially in the spring when the orchards bloomed with white plum blossoms. During the summer, while we harvested the prune crop, Grandma cooked up fine Italian lunches. We would all sit on blankets spread out on the orchard ground, enjoying not just the wonderful food but also the satisfaction of participating in such an important family effort.

To encourage the ripe fruit to fall, Grandpa used a long wooden pole with an iron hook at the top to catch a branch and shake the prunes loose from the trees. Then the rest of us would crawl along, wearing knee pads that Grandma sewed into our overalls, and gather the plums into metal buckets. We dumped the buckets of plums into long, wooden trays, where the little purple plums were soon sun-dried into rich, brown prunes.

After a long, hard day, I walked hand-in-hand with Grandpa through the orchards while he surveyed what he had accomplished that day. I'd enjoy eating fresh plums from the trees, licking the sweet stickiness from my fingertips. On each of these walks, Grandpa would stoop down and pick up a handful of soil, letting it sift slowly and lovingly through his strong, work-calloused hands. Then, with pride and conviction, he would invariably say, “If you take good care of the land, the land will take good care of you.”

As dark came on the ranch, we'd all gather together on the cool, quiet veranda on the front porch. Grandpa would settle comfortably into his rocker, under the dim glow of a flickering, moth-covered light bulb, and there he'd read the latest war news in the newspaper. Grandma sat nearby on the porch swing, swaying and saying her perpetual rosary. The quiet squeak of Grandma's swing and the low mumbling of her prayers could be heard long into the night.

The stillness of the quiet ranch house painfully reflected the absence of the five robust young men. This was the hardest part of the day for Grandma. The silence of the empty house was a painful reminder that her sons were far away, fighting for their country.

On Sunday morning, after church, Grandma was back out on the porch again, repeating her rosary before going into the kitchen to start cooking. Then she and Grandpa sat at the kitchen table, counting out ration slips for the week ahead and what little cash was available to pay the bills. Once they finished, Grandma always took a portion of her money and put it in an old sugar crock, placing it high on the kitchen shelf. I often asked her what the money in the jar was for, but she would only say, “A very special favor.”

The war finally ended, and all five of Grandma's sons came home remarkably safe and sound. After a while, Grandma and Grandpa retired, and the family farm turned into part of a modern expressway.

I didn't find out what the money in that old sugar crock was for until a week or so before last Christmas. Completely on impulse, perhaps feeling the wonder of the Christmas season and the need to connect with its spiritual significance, I stopped at a little church I just happened to be driving past. I'd never been inside before, and as I entered the church through the side door, I was stunned to come face-to-face with the most glorious stained-glass window I'd ever seen.

I stopped to examine the intricate beauty of the window more closely. The magnificent stained glass depicted the Holy Mother and child. Like an exquisite jewel, it reflected the glory of the very first Christmas. As I studied every detail of its fine workmanship, I found, to my utter amazement, a small plaque at the base of the window that read, “For a favor received—donated in 1945 by Maria Carmela Curci-Dinapoli.” I couldn't believe my eyes. I was reading Grandma's very words! Every day, as Grandma said her prayers for her soldier-sons, she'd also put whatever money she could scrape together into her sacred sugar crock to pay for the window. Her quiet donation of this window was her way of saying thank you to the Holy Mother Mary for sparing the lives of her beloved five sons.

Through the generations, the family had lost track of the window's existence. Finding it now at Christmas time, more than half a century later, not only brought back a flood of precious memories, but also made me a believer in small but beautiful miracles.

Cookie Curci

“Do you gift wrap?”

Reprinted by permission of Jonny Hawkins. © 2007 Jonny Hawkins.

The Twelve Years of Christmas

B
lessed is the season which engages the
whole world in a conspiracy of love.

Hamilton Wright Mabi

Since he successfully grew apples, crabapples, and raspberries in the back yard of his Edmonton, Alberta, home, my grandfather, Stan Grandish, began to look for advice on how to successfully grow a pear tree. The general consensus was that the growing season in Alberta would be too short, and for three long years it appeared the naysayers would be right. Undaunted, Grandpa continued to nurture and care for his pride and joy. In early fall of 1985, he triumphantly “harvested” three tiny pears from the otherwise barren tree and proudly proclaimed his experiment a success!

As it often does in the prairies, winter hit hard and early that year, so Grandpa gave his tree only a passing glance as he returned home on December 20 with my grandmother, Mary. He thought he saw something in the tree, but it was dark and cold, so he decided to wait until morning to check it out.

The next morning, Grandpa looked out the kitchen window and could hardly believe his eyes! There in his tree were three large pears and a bird! Hurriedly donning his winter boots and coat, he waded through the two-feet-deep snow, returning to show Mary his prizes. Each pear was handmade from cloth and had no tags or labels.

The bird, clearly a partridge, had been created by a skilled craftsperson from satin. They could find no clue to their origin.

The pears and the partridge clearly paralleled the medieval Christmas carol, “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” and Grandpa thought it must be a joke around his great enthusiasm over the paltry offerings of his pear tree. He and Grandma found great pleasure in sharing their humorous story with family and friends for the rest of the holiday season. Despite their best efforts, the source of the gift remained a mystery.

The following year, Grandpa was surprised to receive a package wrapped in plain brown paper, with an illegible return address. Inside were two ceramic turtledoves. Suddenly, there was a connection to the pears and partridge received last year! Rushing downstairs, they pulled the previous year's joke out of storage. The spark that danced in Grandpa's eyes as he considered this mystery was a joy for all of us to watch. There was nothing Grandpa loved more than to solve a puzzle or outwit an opponent, and he remained confident in his ability to solve this riddle.

The next year, the mystery took on an international twist. Three handcrafted satin hens arrived from Nice, France. The return address was handwritten, so Grandpa did his best to collect handwriting specimens of everyone he knew to compare. But, alas, that holiday season also passed without a solution to the mystery.

And so it continued, year after year. In 1988, four stuffed “calling birds” arrived by parcel post. There was no return address, but the postmark indicated it had been sent from within Canada.

On Christmas Eve of 1989, my grandparents received a call from the bus depot that a package was waiting for pickup. To their great surprise, just arrived by Greyhound from Mundare, Alberta, via Glendon, Vilna, and Vegreville (to obscure the trail), were five rings of sausage, each carefully wrapped in gold foil and arranged in a picnic basket.

By now, my grandparents looked forward each year with great anticipation to see if another “Twelve Days of Christmas” gift would arrive. And they were not alone! As news of the gentle, creative prank became public, more and more media attention became centered on my grandparents. They regularly conducted television and radio interviews across Canada, and as far away as San Diego and London, England. Articles appeared regularly in local Alberta newspapers and national magazines.

The year 1990 brought more international flair. Six white satin “geese a-laying” arrived from Spielberg, Germany, each complete with egg and nest. The following year brought seven silver-plated napkin rings shaped like swans, from Cottesloe, Australia. While my grandparents had a wide circle of friends and family, they had no connection whatsoever with these foreign locations.

In 1992, my grandparents received perhaps their favorite gift of all. Courtesy of an “Old MacDonald” in Wildwood, Alberta, Canada Post delivered a very large box containing eight wooden maids milking eight plastic cows. Each maid had a tiny crank that moved her arm in a milking motion. Predictably, no “Old MacDonald” could be located in Wildwood, Alberta, by an amused Bell Canada Directory Assistance Operator.

“Nine ladies dancing” came in the form of ballerina figurines mailed from Henrietta, New York, and in 1994, ten old-fashioned wooden “lords-a-leaping” were received from Waterloo, Ontario. They actually more closely resembled traditional toy soldiers, but by pulling a string, the arms and legs would fling up and down, mimicking a leap quite effectively. The next year, “eleven pipers piping” arrived from Burgdorf, Switzerland. There were still no clues to this long-running mystery, but my grandparents were hopeful that the twelfth and final year's gift would also include a solution. Finally, the song came to an end in 1996, as twelve wax and plastic angels “drumming” arrived from New Orleans by parcel delivery. Along with this final gift was a poem:

Ho, ho, ho, Stan and Mary, Santa Claus makes his list,
Checks it every day,
Mystery! Surprise! Laughter!
Don't give it away,
It's a secret!
What do you say?

The next year, on December 10, 1997, a card adorned with American postage stamps mysteriously arrived in their mailbox. On the card were messages and greetings from ten different people, each in their own handwriting, and each from the destination corresponding to the origin of the gifts. This was perhaps the most mysterious of all, as my grandparents did not recognize even a single name! Several reporters also examined the card and were successful in contacting some of the people, but all said they had taken an oath of silence and refused to reveal the secret.

It appeared that the mystery would remain forever unsolved.

Then, in the summer of 1999, Grandpa suffered a serious stroke, and for the next several months his health was precarious. During this time, Grandpa's weariness only seemed to brighten when the unsolved Christmas mystery was discussed. Meanwhile, the now famous eighteen-year-old pear tree began to wither and die.

By spring, Grandpa's health had improved, and he had regained enough strength to cut down his beloved old pear tree. And then, on Father's Day, he finally got his wish. His youngest brother, Marshall, and his wife, revealed that they had been the masterminds behind the long-running mystery!

They explained that it had originally started as a gentle prank about Grandpa's dubious pear-growing attempts.

When they witnessed the joy that the mystery gave him, they were compelled to carry it on year after year. To do this over the years had required enormous creativity and planning, and Marshall and Twyla had enlisted the help of many others throughout the world to help them carry on their loving gift of holiday joy and mystery.

Jeff S. Hamilton

The Last Christmas

Christmas is supposed to be a time of peace and joy on Earth, a time of giving and warmth. Many of my friends and acquaintances celebrate the day, the birth of Jesus, at church, followed by a sumptuous meal and opening gifts under the Christmas tree. Still others celebrate the day by helping those who are less fortunate at various food banks, shelters, or hospitals.

I will never forget one special Christmas. I work at Memorial Hermann Hospital, primarily in the Neuro Trauma Intensive Care Unit. Being Jewish, I also worked in other units of the hospital that day so that my Christian coworkers could spend time with their families at home on Christmas.

Walking through the large hospital, I saw several sad families in the many waiting rooms that day. I could imagine them all screaming, “What kind of Christmas is this—spending it at the hospital?” However, when I knocked on room 623 (Mrs. Hunter's room on the oncology floor), I soon learned that everything is relative.

“Hi, my name is Mike Segal from Case Management. Is there anything I can do to help you? May I come in?” I asked those questions to an eighty-seven-year-old cancer patient who, according to the chart, would soon be transferred to a hospice so she might live out the remaining weeks of her life more peacefully.