Kris (25 page)

“Shorty, if you aren't late for everything,” said the man still drying his socks.

“One of the towns is calling him the Santa,” Shorty said smugly, as he revealed news he seemed to feel the others would not know.

“Santa?” James asked.

“It means Saint,” the pastor said.

“Sent to look after the children,” added Ian reverently.

“It's magic!” one of the sailors mocked.

“Shut up!” the grizzly sailor sitting next to him cautioned.

“It's a blessing,” the pastor said gently.

“Right you are!” hollered another of the sailors to the affirming grunts of the men surrounding him.

“He is a saint!” Shorty proclaimed.

“That's a lie!” I found myself bellowing. “He's a lie! Your Santa does not exist!”

I shouted above them all. I stood and lifted the huge round wood table before me, smashing it to the ground, sending a cloud of dust into the air.

There was a stunned silence from the stillness of the men in the room as the dust settled.

Ian stepped up from behind me and set his hand upon my shoulder. “It's Christmas,” he said in an effort to calm.

I had forgotten.

No one moved; their eyes fixed upon me.

“Forgive me,” I said, averting my eyes from theirs in shame.

As I turned to leave these people to their peace, a small hand reached up and tugged at my shirt. Cai, the blue-eyed son of the tavern owner, stood innocently if bravely before me.

“You're wrong, Mister,” he said with as much firmness as he could muster. “Santa is real,” Cai affirmed, “and he gave me this.”

Then he thrust his arm into the sky and brandished a wooden toy reindeer as proof of the Santa's existence.

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 imagined 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.

C
rackles 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.