Finding Christmas

We weren’t prepared for missing Christmas.

It was an unseasonably mild December. A wintry mix of sleet and rain started early Christmas Eve morning, turning our yard into ice-crusted soggy mush. Shorn cornstalks bent in homage to the wet earth.

Winter had arrived at my childhood farm outside of Smyrna, Delaware.

A lone branch banged insistently against the house. Inside, it was cozy and warm. Whiffs of freshly baking pumpkin pie made my mouth water.

It was Saturday. My father slept in just a few minutes longer, coming home after midnight from his second job as a mechanic. My oldest sister, Pat, was back from college. I had missed her.

Our holiday tradition was to put up our tree on Christmas Eve; the rest of the house already decorated with cut holly, live greenery from the farm, and store-bought artificial centerpieces.

Candles and tape

“Wendy, come help me,” Mom called. Her chestnut hair, covered by a blue and pink flowered babushka, was streaked with a hint of gray.

“OK, Mom,” I replied, though longing for a frosted sugar cookie.

We started unpacking brand-new plastic candles from their festive cardboard packaging. Mom often found holiday decorations on sale, and this year it was electric candles. Her plan was to put one in each window, securing them in place with cellophane tape.

“Mom, do you think it will snow?” I asked, unwrapping a white rubber cord. Outside, the wind was picking up. The clouds were dark and low to the ground.

“The paper said this rain might turn to snow,” Mom said. “A white Christmas. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?” She smiled, then wrinkled her forehead at my attempt to untangle the six feet of tape I had pulled from the dispenser.

“The rain doesn’t feel very Christmasy,” I mumbled. Tape stuck to my lips as I tried to tear it with my teeth.

“All that matters is that we are together,” she said kissing me on the head and grabbing the tape.

Finished with the job, she plugged in the lights.

“Look!” she exclaimed. “They work.” A golden glow reflected off the panes, creating halos around each bulb. I gasped. It was perfect.

Feeling pleased, I snuck into the dining room and snatched a cookie.

As I licked crimson sugar sprinkles from my lips, I noticed the sleet changing to flurries, further dimming the gray morning light.

“Get your coats, girls,” my dad called from the front door. “Let’s go get the tree before the snow hits.”

Shrieks and laughter filled the air as three of my sisters and I scrambled to grab our winter gear. Pat decided to stay home and wait for her boyfriend to show up.

Our footwear sat in a disheveled heap near the front door.

Making the ill-fated hasty decision to not run upstairs to change to thinner socks so my feet would fit into my shoes, I skipped putting on my worn leather Mary Janes. Slipping my stocking feet into a pair of blue rubber galoshes and stretching the rubber cord around the two top buttons to secure the boot, I was ready.

Off to get the tree

We assembled on the porch looking like colorful bundled snowmen as Dad started the baby blue 1950 International pickup truck.

The engine cranked to life. My youngest sister Valarie and I hopped onto the front seat while Cindi and Sheila jumped into the back, covering themselves with a tattered patchwork quilt.

We were driving to our grandparent’s old farm several miles away. As Grandmom had passed and Pop Pop was no longer able to live alone, my dad now owned the property and farmed it.

Sharing boundaries with marshy wildlife reserves and neighboring homesteads, that farm had small fields surrounded by boggy woods. Stands of scrubby Eastern white pine stood among red maple, white oak, and black gum. Dad often crafted our Christmas tree by cutting several of the thin, scrawny pines and tying them together.

As the temperature dropped, the rain-soaked forest floor hardened. Our rubber boots crunched through ice-laden puddles as we inspected every sad, untrimmed evergreen tree until we all agreed on the perfect one. Catching icy flakes on our tongue, we spun with our arms out, tripping over whitening underbrush.

Dad swung his ax and with several strong whacks, the tree slowly fell to the earth, branches brushing others in its descent. Using a hacksaw, he trimmed off the lower limbs.

My older sisters held up the back of the tree while my dad heaved the trunk to his shoulder. Val and I picked up the trimmed pine boughs. Mom would use these, tied with red ribbon, to adorn family headstones in the local cemetery.

As we got to the truck, the wind picked up. Flurries turned to squalls. A loud clap of thundersnow hit above our heads, rumbling and echoing off the tree trunks. Startled, my heart started to pound. The winter weather was no longer friendly as the wind started biting our faces.

We piled back in the truck and headed home. Cindi and Sheila climbed into the cab with us, squeezing Val and me onto their laps. We shivered in our damp clothes.

The wipers couldn’t keep up with the fury of the storm, and the glass was quickly freezing. Dad stopped and brushed off the piled-up powder from the windshield.

“Brrr,” he said, jumping back in the truck and playfully flicking crystalline powder from his grease-stained coat onto us.

We drove back slowly, as fierce gusts rocked the old truck. The dark fallow fields turned eerily monochromatic.

The edges of the road had vanished. Only the ditch banks — dark rivers formed by the morning’s sleet — provided a sight line.

The inside of the cab grew quiet. Only the crunch of snow under the tires broke our silence.

“Daddy, are we going to get home?” I asked.

“Of course. If not, we’ll call on Santa to pick us up,” he said winking.

That gave me pause. I had already figured out the Santa story; however, with a very active imagination, I found myself holding onto this possibility.

After what seemed like a long time on the road, we were finally about a mile from the house. My jaw ached from clenching my teeth. Winter white obscured everything. Dad stopped again to wipe off the windshield.

And then, the truck stalled.

Chugga, chugga, chugga.  Chugga, chugga, chugga.

He pumped the gas pedal. It wouldn’t turn over. Flooded out. The longer we sat, the more snow blew against the tires, creating icy drifts.

Over the fields we go

Dad sighed. Then his shoulders straightened, and he turned to us.

“Okay, I think we’re going to have to walk home. Bundle up.”

We climbed out, immediately stung by the frigid air stealing away the warmth of the truck cab.

“Let’s go,” my father said calmly as he scooped up my youngest sister, Val.

There were no tracks to follow on the road. The snow was only an inch or two deep — we could make our way through that. It was the unrelenting wind cutting through our clothes like a blade that made the journey challenging.

Cindi, holding my hand, started singing “Jingle Bells” followed by a soft “Silent Night.” She was most often tasked with taking care of Val and me. When Cindi ran out of carols, Sheila started telling a story.

As my fingers turned to icicles inside my wet mittens, snow sifted into the open top of my rubber boots, freezing my unprotected toes.

My mind wandered back to the house. Mom was going to be so mad that we were late! Would she plug in all the candles or wait for me to come home?

Wind blasted our bodies, causing us to stumble. I thought about the cookie I ate as my insides growled. I should have eaten two.

Deciding to go straight for the house, my dad jumped over a ditch bank and held his hands out for us. The short cut took us through the fields stubbled with cornstalks.

As I jumped, I missed the edge of the ditch, water filling my boots. Each step felt like a sloshing icy wave, numbing my shoeless feet.

Finally, we turned up our lane. In the distance, a blush of amber flickered through the wind driven wall of white.

Arriving at the house, Mom rushed out in slippers to hug each one of us.

“Oh my gosh, I was so worried about all of you!” she said, tears flowing. She furiously hugged each of our wet bodies. “What happened? Francis?”

“Truck stalled, Tookie Cat,” replied my dad using his pet name for her. “The kids are all right. I need to get the tractor and pull it home. Pat, get your coat on,” he called to my oldest sister. “I need you to steer the truck.”

“Oh, my goodness,” my mother said as she nodded to him. “You children are as cold as popsicles.”

Our mother’s arms nearly squeezed the breath out of us as she wrapped them around Val and me.

“We’re okay, Mommy,” I said, struggling for air. I couldn’t feel my ice cube feet, longing to warm them on our floor heat registers.

“It was an adventure!” Sheila said.

“And we have a tree!” chirped Val with a happy voice.

Inside our home, the savory aroma of simmering roast beef lingered in the air. My mother had cooked supper. It had grown cold as she paced waiting for us, looking out into the evolving blizzard, hoping to see some sign her family was safe.

“Put your wet clothes on the heater,” Mom said, her eyes still red from crying. “Then put on your jammies, and let’s eat supper. There will be no church tonight.”

As she turned to the kitchen, her body softened.

She hadn’t been angry that we were late. She was terrified we had been lost.

Finding Christmas

Later, Dad and Pat returned from retrieving the truck. We all decorated the tree, now shaken off, dry, and secured in its place in the family room. Dinner was re-heated and feasted upon. Close to midnight, Mom read the story of the first Christmas as we munched on cookies and drank hot chocolate.

My father came over to me and put his hand on my head.

“Wendy, you know what?”

“What, Daddy?”

“The wind was blowing the snow so hard, I could barely see. I looked up and saw the lights in the windows,” he said. “We found our way home because of the candles you and Mommy put in the windows.”

I looked at the lights; glass panes iced from the cold air outside.

“It’s good we’re all home,” I said as the Christmas Eve Blizzard of 1966 raged outside.

Homemade cookies, unexpected snow, and our freshly cut tree. We had weathered this storm together.

We didn’t miss Christmas. It was there all along.