The Joy of Christmas Read online

  I called my mom. As I described everything in detail, she remained quiet. And, when I finally paused what she said blew me away. She told me her mom was a seamstress and would often make “hostess aprons” to earn extra cash. She always gave them to her children’s teachers as Christmas gifts, and those teachers always loved them.

  My mom also told me that she had kept one of her mom’s aprons all these years, and that even though she never wore it, she kept it tucked away in a special place and pulled it out from time to time. She said that as I was telling her about my dream, she pulled it out and was holding it in her hands.

  I was speechless. Not only did I not remember my grandmother, I certainly never knew about her having made aprons. But, I remained open to the possibility that something unexplainable was happening, and told my mom that I was going to purchase the materials and attempt to make what I saw in my dream. Then I would compare it to what she had.

  Several hours later, I was confident I’d recreated, with the help of my granddaughter, what I saw in my dream — in red, like in the dream, and in black. The bric-a-brac was placed just as I saw it along the hem. The rhinestones formed a diamond in the center of the waistband. The sash was long enough to make a nice bow in the back.

  It was time to compare what I had to what my mother had, so off we went to her house.

  As I unwrapped what I made and Mom walked into her living room with what her mother had made, we all gasped — they were identical! I had made an exact replica of what my mother held in her hands. We both knew that something special had happened, and for the longest time we just looked at them, in silence, and tried to make sense of it all.

  After the Christmas break, I received the most beautiful note from my granddaughter’s teacher, thanking me for the “most unique gift” she’d received during her teaching career. She promised that she would wear this apron every time she entertained, and would always be reminded of my granddaughter. While I cannot explain how I remembered every single detail of that dream, or how my grandmother seemed to know the intended recipient of the apron, what I do know is that something special happened that I will never forget.

  My granddaughter is now grown, with children of her own, but every year our family still talks about the angel of a grandmother neither of us knew, but who visited in a dream and gave us a gift we’ll always treasure.

  ~Victoria Jones

  On the Wings of Faith

  Faith and prayer are the vitamins of the soul; man cannot live in health without them.

  ~Mahalia Jackson

  On a crisp, autumn afternoon in October 2008 I was standing in the kitchen with my wife, Karen, while she cooked dinner. I was describing the day’s events when I heard the sound of a horn repeatedly honking at my mother’s house next door.

  My heart skipped a couple of beats and a sickening wave of terror came over me, as the car horn kept going off. Something was wrong! I had recently taught my elderly mother that if she was in distress she should press the alarm button on her car’s key fob.

  “Mother must be in trouble!” I said, as I dashed out the door.

  I could see my mother seated behind the steering wheel of her white Mercury in the driveway. I was running as hard as I could to get to her, watching in horror and disbelief as she drove away from me. She sped off between the two live oak trees and down the hill toward the lake behind the house.

  “Hit the brake!” I yelled.

  I watched in horror as her vehicle got closer to the water. All of a sudden, the vehicle took a hard left, narrowly missing the small wooden deck and staying on dry ground. Mother then kept driving along the side of the lake.

  I finally reached the car and banged my hand on the trunk. Mother hit the brake and I motioned for her to lower the window.

  “Mother, what are you doing?” I blurted out.

  “What’s wrong with you, Jim?” she calmly replied.

  “Where are you going and why are you honking your horn?”

  Mother gave me a warm, sweet smile and stated, “I’m chasing those geese back to the lake where they belong. They’re pooping on my driveway!”

  I stood there stunned, totally out of breath. My heart was pounding. I slowly turned and began the walk back to the house to tell Karen that Mother had just been on a wild goose chase!

  Later that evening, I spoke on the phone with my sister Debbie, and she laughed so hard she cried when I told her what Mother had done. Then, a few days later, when I talked with Debbie again she shared with me that she and her husband, Clay, had decided that a large ornamental goose would be the perfect Christmas present for Mother, in honor of her goose antics.

  Tragically, in November, my fifty-two-year-old sister broke her ankle when she stepped off a curb the wrong way. She developed a blood clot and she passed away on Sunday, November 23rd. It all happened so suddenly, and it changed our family forever.

  When Clay went to pick up Debbie’s personal items from her office he found that she had asked her co-worker, Tamara, to be on the lookout for the biggest ornamental goose she could find. Tamara had bought a goose on the same day Debbie died. She had intended to surprise Debbie with it when she came back to work on Monday morning, but that was never to be.

  At Christmastime, Clay and his sons Andy and Ben presented Mother with the goose as a gift from Debbie, Clay, and the boys. It started out as a gift with one meaning, but it ended up having a deeper purpose — reminding us of all the beautiful memories we had shared over the years.

  “I hope you keep the goose and every time you look at it you think of Debbie,” Clay said.

  Clay reminded Mother that geese share the same attribute as he and Debbie’s marriage had — they mate for life unless one of them is killed or dies.

  Mother and I have gotten in the habit of walking down to the lake and looking for the geese every autumn. This year, as we walked down to the lake and watched for the geese to swoop down again, we could feel fall in the air. The migrating geese would be coming soon.

  We stood at the lake, each of us thinking of Debbie. I was wishing there was a way for her to still be with us — some kind of sign that she was here and watching over us.

  “Look, Jim!” Mother said.

  I looked up to see a flock of geese flying above us in V- formation. I was speechless as they descended and glided effortlessly across the lake. My prayers had been answered.

  Today that Canada Goose stands in Mother’s den to remind us of Debbie’s love for each of us, and the day the geese came to visit when we needed them most.

  ~Jim Luke

  Mom’s Wish

  Let perseverance be your engine and hope your fuel.

  ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

  Mom came to live near us in Ohio after learning she had breast cancer. At eighty-eight, her memory was also failing. One evening, as we discussed the approaching holidays, I asked the question that had been on my mind for weeks.

  “What’s your Christmas wish?”

  Thoughtfully, she gazed out at the tall pine trees lining her yard. John and I found her a place only five minutes from us, and she’d settled in nicely, already enjoying the wildlife appearing in her yard every day.

  “I want a nativity scene just like the one we had on the Christmas tree farm years ago,” she quietly confessed. “How about you? What’s your wish?”

  “To see you smile…” I murmured, fighting back tears.

  “Sounds like we both could use that manger scene…”

  I remembered that nativity well. Families arriving at our sixty-two-acre tree farm enjoyed visiting Mary, Joseph and Jesus, the three wise men, the shepherd and animals.

  John and I got busy that night searching for large plastic molded figures like the ones Mom and Dad owned years ago. We couldn’t find them anywhere, not even on the Internet.

  Finally, we found a three-piece set consisting of Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus at Kmart. We were still holding out for the eleven-piece set like the one Mom and Dad had years ago. Still,
we ventured across town to purchase the three-piece set before they sold out, placing it in the corner of the garage.

  John and his son made sketches of the stable they would build. Relatives made frequent calls, trying their best to locate the “rest” of the holy family.

  “It seems like everyone is getting excited about my manger scene,” Mom thoughtfully commented one evening, a big smile on her face.

  Days passed, and we still hadn’t gotten any closer to finding the remainder of the nativity scene. John and I had tons of errands to run and chores to do at our own home.

  Then, Mom spent three days in the hospital. The nativity scene was all but forgotten… until one evening as we sat in front of a cozy fire watching a football game. I noticed John slowly rubbing his chin, a sure sign he was deep in thought.

  “You know, my parents had a nativity scene when I was a little boy. I wonder if it’s possible that those plastic figures are still stored away in the empty garage they once owned.”

  We drove across town to the garage, and started rummaging through hundreds of items that were still there. Suddenly John found it. I watched in amazement as he uncovered a tall shepherd holding a lamb, three wise men who’d seen better days, an angel, a camel, and a cow. There was a Mary figure too, but no Joseph or Baby Jesus.

  “Let’s get these guys home to our warm garage. I can get them in shape in no time!”

  That evening, John powerwashed each figure. I set to work with brushes and paints.

  When the paint dried, I called John out to the garage.

  “They are even more beautiful than the original ones,” he said. “But will they still light up?”

  John slowly plugged each figure in one by one while I held my breath. Every single figure lit up as if fifty years had not passed.

  “And remember, we have Mary, Joseph and Jesus. I’m so thankful we bought that threesome when we did!”

  Hurriedly, we opened the box, placing the most important “part” of the scene in the center of the room. Since we now owned two “Mary’s,” I got busy transforming one of them into an angel with glistening wings.

  The next day, John and his son erected the stable under the tall pines in Mom’s front yard. We arranged the figures on top of mounds of straw and mounted a gold tree in the top branches of a nearby tree.

  That night, as the lights twinkled and the figures beckoned the cars slowly making their way up the street, Mom’s eyes filled with happy tears.

  “Thank you for making my Christmas wish a reality.”

  The holidays were soon just happy memories. Winter snows melted, ushering in springtime’s gentle rains. Tiny buds appeared on the trees… even the bird’s cheerful song seemed different.

  Mom had insisted we leave the nativity scene in the pine grove even though I thought it looked out of place.

  One morning as I prepared Mom’s bacon and eggs, I brought up the subject again.

  “Mom, don’t you think it’s time to put the nativity scene in your barn until next year? We’ll be putting your fountain out soon. It might look a bit cluttered having both out there.”

  Mom thoughtfully stirred her coffee before speaking.

  “That scene bears a message. I want it to remain right where it is.”

  I swallowed the urge to argue, silently praying. An inner voice immediately answered.

  “What difference does it make to you if your Mom wants to share her faith with others in this way?”

  “Forgive me, Lord…”

  The rest of the day flew by. Soon John and I were making our way back to Mom’s with her evening meal and medicine.

  Together, we shared dinner seated in front of her picture window. As the sun lowered in the sky, brushstrokes of purple, gold and orange painted God’s awesome tapestry.

  “Isn’t the scenery beautiful here in the country?”

  Suddenly Mom gasped.

  “Look!”

  John and I stared out across the acres of green. A ray of dappled evening light beamed across the lawn and directly onto the nativity scene. There, in the very center of it, knelt a young man. His head was reverently bowed, his hands clasped together. The three of us watched in silent awe.

  “I wonder who he is…”

  Before any of us could move, the young man disappeared.

  I glanced over at Mom, unable to utter a sound. Her face was as radiant as the remaining beam of light.

  “The manger scene remains,” she quietly stated.

  “You betcha!” I replied.

  The heavenly angels had made that decision perfectly clear.

  ~Mary Z. Whitney

  The Warning

  The tie which links mother and child is of such pure and immaculate strength as to be never violated.

  ~Washington Irving

  I had felt that something was wrong ever since my seventeen-year-old daughter went out earlier that evening. Even after she came home and went to bed, I still felt a sense of foreboding. I kept telling myself, “She’s safe. You just checked on her.”

  But that feeling of imminent doom continued to haunt me for the next hour. Then it stopped. I checked my daughter again and she was sleeping quietly.

  The next morning we learned that a friend of my daughter’s had died in an accident. It happened in those early morning hours when I lay awake, staring terrified into the blackness. My daughter’s friend looked a lot like her and their birth dates were only weeks apart. And, most important, although they were unrelated to each other, their first and last names were identical in spelling.

  From my earliest childhood, I had had this sixth sense that would alert me to significant happenings before they occurred. My family moved to Southern California when I was eight and for the next couple of years, I would always know when friends or relatives from Northern California were about to drop in to visit. Mom had learned to act on my feelings. She’d give the house a quick cleaning and make sure we were having a nice dinner. Late that afternoon, the very friends or relatives I had told her about would arrive to surprise us and find a sparkling clean house and the special dinner we “just happened” to be eating that night.

  Several years later, on Christmas Eve, my daughters and I were supposed to drive up to visit my brother and his family about fifty miles from us in Washington State. We planned to get there in time for Midnight Mass.

  But that afternoon, as I bustled about my house, wrapping presents and getting ready to leave, my happy thoughts about the coming evening suddenly turned dark. I felt that familiar heaviness settle in my stomach. I tried to ignore it. Everyone was expecting us. My mother was already there from California. This was Christmas, and bad things don’t happen at Christmas. What could possibly be bothering me?

  And then it came to me. Part of the drive to my brother’s house was around a lake — on a curving stretch of two-lane road with high rocky bluffs on one side and a straight drop-off into deep water on the other. It was a beautiful drive on a sunny summer day, but a hazardous one on an icy winter night. Through the years, that deep lake had claimed many lives. Something was warning me not to take the drive that evening.

  We couldn’t go. But everyone was expecting us. My mother was already there. Reluctantly I called my brother’s house. As Mom answered, my stomach continued to roil. When I explained, she didn’t hesitate. “If something’s not right, don’t even think about coming out. Just take care of yourselves.”

  “We might be able to come tomorrow,” I offered tentatively. “It’s just tonight that’s wrong.”

  “Only if you’re sure. Don’t take any chances.”

  I promised and hung up the phone. As I knelt again beside the wrapping paper and gifts, the feeling of foreboding left me.

  The next morning was fine, and we drove to my brother’s home. I didn’t feel the slightest panic or uncertainty on any part of that ride, not even as we wound around the lakeshore and I stared into those freezing depths. I didn’t hesitate either, when later that afternoon, my older daughter as
ked if she could take my car and drive home with my younger daughter and my niece. Mom and I planned to spend the night and drive back the next day in Mom’s car. My sister-in-law and I gave permission, and the girls left for home.

  When Mom and I got home the next afternoon, my older daughter, wide-eyed, greeted us. “Remember you were scared about driving on Christmas Eve?” I nodded.

  She gestured to her younger sister. “Well, we didn’t tell you, but we planned to ask if we could drive out in my car that night, instead of with you.” She grinned sheepishly. “I know you would’ve agreed because I would’ve pestered you until you gave in. After we got home yesterday, we went for a ride in my car. We were in town, so I wasn’t going fast. I pulled up to a stop sign and my brakes failed. I steered over to the side of the road and stopped, so we were all right.”

  Her next words came out in a rush. “I checked the odometer. The distance I drove yesterday afternoon, if I’d been driving on Christmas Eve night like I planned, we would have been at the lake when my brakes went out. I would have been going faster and wouldn’t have been able to stop. Mom, we would have gone into the water.”

  I looked at my mother. She looked at me. Simultaneously, we lifted our eyes heavenward and fervently whispered, “Thank you.”

  ~Louise Lenahan Wallace

  Our Guardian Angels

  The guardian angels of life fly so high as to be beyond our sight, but they are always looking down upon us.

  ~Jean Paul Richter

  It had been a year of heartache. My father and my aunt died, and then I got laid off, followed soon thereafter by the hospitalization of my elderly mother. And then there was my divorce, too, and the sale of my house in a bad market.

  And yet, the strange thing is, each day I felt like I was being helped.

  Rentals were scarce in my neighborhood but one became available just when I needed it, and it was right around the corner from my sons’ school.