Christmas is a time to honor traditions and celebrate family, especially one’s progenitors.
Miss Spires, still residing in the tidy little house just outside town in which she had been born over eighty years ago and where she had lived her entire life, worked hard at respecting those traditions.
Not that children should be forgotten, especially if they were part of the household. But they should be folded into traditions, rather than the entire holiday redesigned for their benefit.
She remembered the last time children had been in this house for the holiday. Those children had been her two young nephews, briefly ensconced in the attic bedrooms while their father, Miss Spires’ brother Robert, had been deployed overseas with his miliary unit.
Miss Spires never quite approved of their mother, but she was careful not to express that opinion. The woman had deposited her sons, for a “brief visit” which extended for months, and gone about her mysterious business, which seemed to involve many mysterious acquaintances and an exorbitant amount of travelling.
Soon after that Christmas, word had reached the family of Robert’s tragic death while serving overseas. The mother, apparently upon being informed of the financial benefits accruing to a deceased serviceperson’s minor children, had swooped in, reclaimed the boys, married one of the mysterious acquaintances, and left the state.
Miss Spires dutifully sent a birthday card and a Christmas card every year to each of
She had a vivid memory of the struggle to get her father and the young boys dressed appropriately for midnight services that Christmas Eve, then the difficulty of hiring a taxi to convey them to the church. She’d had to agree to pay the driver to wait for them during the service and drive them home. But she’d managed. Traditions needed to be upheld.
After the service, the boys had been too tired to partake of the waffle breakfast which was to follow the services, so she had taken them upstairs to put them to bed.
By the time she’d returned downstairs, her father was asleep in his easy chair. So she’d helped him to his room, too, and eased him into his bed.
Then, a bit forlornly, she’d had her late night breakfast of orange juice, waffles, sausages, and coffee. It was the first of many solitary meals.
Her father had arranged for someone from the toy store to deliver a dazzling array of sturdy yellow toy construction vehicles to line up under the tree. The boys were delighted, and she remembered how devastated they had been to leave them behind.
On that long-ago Christmas morning, Miss Spires had not been successful in getting the boys to abandon their gifts for a dignified brunch of breakfast strata with homemade raisin cinnamon bread, and her father wanted to sit in the living room and watch them play.
She refused to provide food away from the dining table, but it seemed no one cared.
Once again, she ate alone.
No one else wanted a piece of pie she’d made, not even if she offered to top it with a scoop of ice cream.
It was then she realized that, if the family traditions were to be kept up, she would have to take charge of them herself.
The shock of Robert’s death had been too much for her father, and he had passed a few weeks after that Christmas.
Leaving Miss Spires to carry on everything alone. Including Christmas traditions.
Sometimes things happened that disrupted them. Then, she had to accept the changes or drop that particular tradition completely.
Since that distressing fire in the church a few years ago, most of the people at the midnight candlelight service carried some type of flickering electronic candles instead of wax ones. She had to admit that was much easier on her nerves than young children and careless adults waving real flames around.
And instead of pulling a sled down to the Christmas tree sales lot downtown and returning to her home, pulling the tree, she had to pay a small fortune to purchase a
She did decorate it herself. And she placed the nativity figures on a table in the front hallway.
Her father had given her the basic set of figures, imported from Italy, one year. Each year thereafter, he added one more carefully chosen figure.
After he passed away, Miss Spires had continued adding a figure a year for a while. But somehow choosing and buying it herself was not the same. So the collection had not grown beyond that point.
This year, like every other year, she spent much of December preparing for the holiday. On Christmas Eve, all was ready.
Light snow fell most of the afternoon, giving the surroundings a picturesque and appropriate blanket of glistening white. Miss Spires hoped it would not be so terribly cold and windy that she would be reluctant to walk to the church in town for the midnight service.
Before that, however, the carolers would come. They started in town and wound through the streets on their way to her house. Knowing it was a bit of a hike for tired carolers to reach her hilltop, she had decided years ago to make the trek worth their while. She prepared a light supper with sandwiches, cookies, and hot mulled cider. That seemed to work to keep up the tradition of the carolers. At their last stop, they
As the early winter evening fell, however, the wind picked up and the snow came down more heavily in blinding swirls.
If it were too bad, Miss Spires could skip midnight services and go straight to her late-night waffle breakfast. That would be only a minor deviation from her traditions—a deviation supported by something more important. Her health and safety.
Several times she pulled on her boots and warm jacket to go out and sweep the snow from the walk so the carolers could come in. If she let it get too deep, she might not be able to clear it. She had no desire to be snowed in.
After she went out about nine o’clock to sweep, however, she realized that the road was drifting over. If the carolers had not made it by now, they were unlikely to come.
Discouraged, she went back inside and looked at the buffet she’d set out. Then she turned off the gas keeping the cider warm and sadly thought about disassembling the refreshments. She would miss the carolers.
It was a lot of food. One must never waste food. And here she still had the ham dinner to fix for tomorrow. She could freeze most of it, she supposed. She’d be eating this food until sometime in February. Perhaps beyond.
First, however, Miss Spires ladled herself a mug of cider, turned out most of the lights, except for those sparkling on the Christmas tree, and sat in the living room, trying to feel festive despite the weather.
Just in case, she left the light on the front porch on.
After all, she told herself, this was a true white Christmas. Quite traditional. She could remember Christmases like this from her childhood, when they were snowed in for several days. If anything, it had made the holiday jollier in the little house.
Somehow, she didn’t feel jolly.
She’d barely finished the cider and was deciding it was time to turn out the porch light
The carolers! They had come. Thank goodness she’d not cleared the food away. By now, they must be very cold and hungry.
But when she opened the door wide, ready to greet them, she was not met by the carolers from town.
A bedraggled woman in a short coat and a headscarf stood there. A small child stood on either side, clasping her legs. The children at least looked as if they were dressed for the weather. The woman most definitely was not.
“Please,” the woman said in a trembling voice, her eyes bleary. “My car slipped off into the ditch. I can’t get it back on the road. And I saw your lights…”
Miss Spires stiffened. What was wrong with people these days? To be out driving in this weather with two small children in the car. On Christmas Eve yet.
But there was no way she could leave them outside in such a storm.
She moved out of the doorway and invited the trio in.
They stood awkwardly in the entry, melting snow dripping from their clothes and forming little puddles on the tile floor.
“Are you hungry?” she asked, glad that she had not yet cleared the offerings for the carolers away.
The woman nodded. “I packed some sandwiches to give the kids for the trip, and they ate them at a rest stop at lunchtime. But I expected to have arrived by supper time. Then we hit this weather…”
But she decided against saying anything. She helped the woman strip the damp outerwear from the children and hang it on the hall tree. The woman’s meager coat joined them.
As Miss Spires escorted them into the dining room, the children caught a view of the lit Christmas tree in the living room. Their eyes opened wide.
Miss Spires pulled chairs up to the table and placed a plate in front of each of them.
The children climbed up into the chairs and their eyes grew even wider when they saw all the food, but they didn’t reach for any.
“It looks like you’re expecting guests,” the woman said.
“Yes,” Miss Spires answered, for the carolers would be guests of a sort. Not family or friends perhaps, but guests nonetheless. “But given the weather, I doubt anyone will be coming. Please help yourselves.” The woman placed sandwiches on the children’s plates.
Miss Spires filled mugs with the cider and put them on the table. “I’m afraid I don’t have milk for the children.”
“Quite all right,” the woman said. “I appreciate your generosity. As do the children.” She devoured a sandwich ravenously herself and drank her cider. “Thank you. This is ever so kind of you.”
Miss Spires smiled grimly. Generosity and kindness had little to do with it. She recognized her Christian duty when she saw it. And she knew what she must do.
She comforted herself thinking about the story of The Christmas Visitor, which her father had told her every Christmas Eve in her childhood. The old folk tale of the man
But instead of the Lord, a ragged beggar shows up. The man lets him warm himself by the fire, gives him some of the food, and sends him out to complete his journey with the man’s own warm coat. Then a woman with an infant arrives, needing a place to rest and feed her hungry child. Finally a small boy who has been out searching for his lost dog stops by to ask for directions, and reluctantly the man takes him home.
By that time, it is Christmas Day, and the Lord has not come. Despairing that he may have missed the visit, he asks in prayer why the Lord has not shown up.
“But I have visited you three times tonight,” the Lord tells him. “I was the beggar who had no coat, and you gave me one. I was the woman with an infant who needed a place to rest, and you opened your door to me. I was the lost boy with his dog, and you guided me home. You are three times blessed.”
Miss Spires had no illusions that the Lord was going to speak to her, or indeed that he had promised to visit her this Christmas Eve, and she didn’t intend to hand her warm coat over to this woman. But she took the story to heart.
The woman brushed a few crumbs from one of the children’s faces. “My goodness. Here I was so hungry I didn’t think to introduce myself. I’m Judy.” She gestured at the children. “The little girl is Ava, and the boy is Troy.”
Miss Spires drew herself upright. She did not approve of this modern taking liberties with how one addressed others. But she recognized it was each person’s prerogative to be addressed as he or she saw fit. “I am Miss Spires,” she said. “The road will be completely blocked by now. You must stay here tonight.”
The woman nodded. “Thank you, Miss Spires. You may have saved our lives! You’ve at least saved us from a cold, hungry night in the car.”
“How did you come to be out in this weather?” Miss Spires couldn’t help but ask.
Judy sighed. “I wanted us to join my husband for Christmas. Surprise him. He sounded so lonesome when I last talked to him on the phone. We had to be out of our apartment by the end of the month anyhow, and I was worried that I wouldn’t have enough money for gas to get here if I spent too much more on food. So I set out. I guess I should have listened more carefully to the weather report.”
“Well, the trip was a mistake.” Judy wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I never should have taken such a risk, what with the kids…”
“And your husband?” Miss Spires asked.
“He just started a new job,” Judy said. “In town here. The beginning of the month. And got a place for us to stay.”
“You’re not from around here?”
“No. We never expected to move to a small town like this. But he found the job…”
There she was, with that annoying trailing off sentences instead of saying what she meant. Perhaps it was because she was as poor at planning what she wanted to say as she obviously was at planning her life. “Had he been out of work?” Mis Spires asked.
“Yeah. Things didn’t work out for us. Stewart was in the Navy, but as the kids got older, he wasn’t happy with his long deployments at sea. So when his hitch was up, he got a position with the Department of Defense. I quit my job and we moved so he could take that job. Then…”
Miss Spires saw that she was blinking back tears so didn’t try to hurry her along.
“Then,” Judy continued. “They fired the people who were on probationary status. Like Stewart. He hadn’t worked there anywhere near a full year yet. We hadn’t even caught up with all the moving expenses, and we had a lease we couldn’t afford. He started looking for job anywhere that would take his application, and I picked up as many hours at a fast-food place as I could.”
At least, Miss Spires thought, they had tried to meet their challenges rather than sitting back and despairing.
Despairing never did anyone any good anyhow.
“So he didn’t know you were coming?” Miss Spires asked.
Judy gave a wan smile. “No. At least he shouldn’t be worried about us being on the road in this storm. But I guess I should call and tell him what’s happened.”
She pulled out one of those cell phones that didn’t need to be wired into anything. Miss Spires had seen them, and had no idea how such a thing could work. But work it did.
“Stewart…” Judy said into the phone.
Apparently the trailing-off sentences were a habit.
Miss Spires got up and carried some of the leftover food into the kitchen to give her some privacy.
When she returned, Judy was wiping her eyes again. “Stewart said he didn’t think he could get out here to pick us up tonight.”
“He’s right,” Miss Spires said. “My father’s old room has a large bed. Do you think you can manage with that?”
“Oh, yes.” Judy looked at the children. Troy was sitting still, staring through the doorway at the lit Christmas tree, and Ava was practically falling asleep in the chair.
“Just let me help clean up.” Judy stood and picked up a platter.
“No. I’ll take care of that,” Miss Spires said. But she was pleased that Judy had offered.
As the women herded the children toward the bedroom, Troy asked, “Is Santa coming tonight?”
Judy flinched. “No. Remember, we talked about that? We decided that Santa Claus is a nice story that we like to pretend about? But it’s not real. And this year, we won’t have many Christmas presents. Daddy said he will take you to pick out a present when he gets his next paycheck. That will be our Christmas presents this year.”
Miss Spires showed them where the bathroom was, got them towels, and left them to their own devices.
Judy did not reappear. She must have gone to bed at the same time as the children. Not surprising. She must have been exhausted if she had been driving for hours in such a storm.
Miss Spires cleaned up. Then she considered. Certainly she was not about to attempt to walk to church. Was there any point in having the post-midnight services breakfast? Besides, the breakfast strata for tomorrow was not large enough for four people, even if two of them were children. She would save the waffles and sausages for everyone’s breakfast tomorrow morning.
After a few minutes’ thought, she went upstairs to the attic bedrooms and looked at the yellow construction fleet. No one had touched them for years. While they did bring
Miss Spires brought them downstairs. They were a bit dusty, but otherwise in fine shape. She set them under the Christmas tree, turned out the lights, and went to bed herself.
The next morning, she was no sooner up and dressed than Judy appeared with the children. Hopefully, she peered out the front window toward the road.
The snow had stopped falling, but it covered everything. It was impossible to tell where the front yard ended and the road began. The ditches were filled with drifted snow. It would be treacherous travelling.
And the family’s car was in a ditch.
The children gravitated toward the Christmas tree.
Miss Spires turned on the lights.
They looked from the brilliant tree to the toy trucks but didn’t move.
“You may play with them if you would like,” Miss Spires said.
Ava sank down on her knees and pushed a front-end loader forward.
Troy sat down next to a dump truck and figured out how to raise its bed.
Miss Spires turned to Judy. “I’m afraid I don’t have any dolls or other things suitable for a girl to play with.”
That wasn’t strictly true. She did have a miniature porcelain tea set she’d been given as a child, but it was delicate, and she was reluctant to trust it to a small child’s hands.
Judy smiled. “That’s okay. Ava loves trucks with the best of them. She’d probably rather play with them anyhow.”
Miss Spires started to say something disparaging about turning little girls into tomboys, but she stopped. Why shouldn’t a little girl play with trucks? Why shouldn’t she even grow up to be a truck driver if that’s what she wanted to do? Or even a heavy equipment operator? Times were different.
What would Miss Spires have done with her life if she had an opportunity to do something besides being so focused on being a proper lady?
The children came politely when summoned to breakfast and sat nicely at the table. But as soon as they were done eating, they headed back toward the living room.
Troy stopped at the hall table
Miss Spires was about to admonish him not to touch but then thought “Why?” The figures were made of a sturdy resin. Hadn’t St. Francis of Assisi used the first nativity scene to instruct children about the birth of Christ?
Surely if St. Francis had thought that it was a good idea to let children learn from such an activity, she should do the same.
“You may take them and play with them,” she told Troy.
Judy looked alarmed “Be careful!” she instructed. Then she cleared the table and started washing dishes.
Miss Spires turned to dinner preparation. The ham was quite large. Each year she got an entire half. And each year, about two weeks into January and still eating ham, she promised herself that next year, she would get a much smaller piece.
But this wasn’t the year. There would be plenty of ham. She had lots of potatoes. The servings of vegetables might be a bit skimpy. She didn’t think the children would mind that too much. Judy’s phone suddenly played a tune. Apparently that was how these devices “rang.” She took the phone into the bedroom to answer.
When she returned, she said to Miss Spires, “Steward is helping on a snowplow. He said they have to do in town first and won’t be out this way until later. Then they’ll see if they can pull the car out of the ditch, and we can leave you in peace.” She looked thoughtful. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done.”
Miss Spires wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that, so she nodded and returned to peeling potatoes.
When dinner was cooking, Miss Spires looked in on the children.
They had set up a nativity scene, with the baby Jesus and his mother in a cardboard box laying on its side. The donkey and the ox looked on. The other figures were gathering to admire the infant, but not in conventional ways.
The angels, some with their trumpets, were perched above the box in the raised bucket of a backhoe.
The wise men, camels and all, were arriving in the bed of a dump truck.
Joseph was directing traffic, showing the imaginary drivers where to park their trucks so that their passengers could visit the infant and his mother.
Miss Spires smiled. St. Francis would be pleased.
She set the table, not with the special delicate Christmas china she would have used if she had been alone, but with the sturdy everyday plates and dishes that were more suitable for a family. She took some pinecones and ribbons from a seasonal decoration on a windowsill and arranged them in the center of the table.
Just as the ham came out of the oven, they heard the snowplow rumble by. Judy rushed to the window to look out.
“They’ve stopped by my car in the ditch,” she reported. “Now they’re hooking up a chain to pull it out.”
A few minutes later, she said, “Stewart has gotten the car right in front of the house. Now he’s shoveling from the road to the house.”
Quite a relief, thought Miss Spires. Had he not done so, given the depth of the snow, it might have been days before she was able to navigate her front walk.
A knock came on the door.
Judy pulled it open and threw herself into the arms of a tall, bearded man who was covered with clumps of snow and melting ice.
“You’ll get yourself all wet,” he scolded laughingly. “And all your clothes are packed away in the car. You’ll freeze on the way to our apartment.”
“Come in,” Miss Spires said. “We were about to sit down to dinner. You must join us.”
“Oh, we couldn’t,” Stewart said. “You’ve done enough already.”
Miss Spires drew herself upright. “You can, and you will. It’s all prepared.”
Judy blinked anxiously. “You’ve been so kind…”
“Those children deserve a decent Christmas dinner,” Miss Spires said. “And since your husband didn’t know you were coming, I don’t imagine he has much to feed them.”
Stewart hung his head. “That’s true. I was waiting until I got my paycheck to go grocery shopping.”
“It’s all settled.” Miss Spires glanced at the dining table. Although she had used her everyday tableware, it had not looked so festive in many a year. “Go fetch the children.”
When they saw their father, the children abandoned the poor wisemen and shepherds and ran to him. “Daddy! You came!”
The meal was delightful. The children, well-behaved as usual, ate an astonishing amount of ham and canned pineapple slices and mashed potatoes.
As she had suspected, they were not the least upset that each one got only a few green beans and a small spoonful of creamed spinach.
When they were done except for the pie, Judy pushed back her chair. “Go sit in the living room, Miss Spires. Stewart and I will clean up.”
Miss Spires did. She sat in her father’s chair and watched the children play. She felt relaxed and content. More content than she had for as long as she could remember. Was this what her father had felt watching his grandsons, her nephews, play with the trucks on that Christmas long ago?
While she had instead been fussing over every deviation from the family traditions as she interpreted them.
The children’s nativity story evolved into a missing lamb, hidden behind the rocking chair, and all the shepherds fanned out to look for it. Meanwhile, the wise men discussed how the three of them would manage the return trip with only two camels. Perhaps the donkey could be pressed into service for the remaining one? Or, if Joseph needed the donkey to flee to Egypt, perhaps they could use the ox?
Yes, St. Francis would indeed be pleased.
Judy and Stewart, holding hands, came into the living room. “All cleaned up, Miss Spires,” Judy said. “I have no idea how to thank you properly for all you have done for us.”
Miss Spires felt an unfamiliar lump in her throat. “You are most welcome, my dears.”
“As soon as we get settled,” Stewart said, “we’ll have you over for dinner at our place.”
The lump grew bigger. Miss Spires started to say that of course she couldn’t do that—except for church and the grocery store, she seldom went out. And certainly not to dinner at other people’s houses. But why not?
She heard herself saying, “That would be lovely. And perhaps you can come to Sunday dinner after church.”
Stewart grinned. “I’m sure the kids would love that. They’ve really taken to those trucks. It might give them a chance to play with them again.”
Miss Spires cleared her throat. “Why, I believe that Santa has left those trucks as Christmas gifts. You should take them with you.”
A tear appeared in Judy’s eye. “That’s really too much, after everything that’s happened…”
“Nonsense,” said Miss Spires. “At Christmas time, anything can happen.”
