The Melheimian Sabbatiblog

This Christmas Morning

Here's a little Christmas present you might enjoy from me to you. It started as a stage play the moment I heard Robin Cain sing her original song in worship. I saw the whole play flash before my eyes: A woman's "Martha Stewartish" mom died on Thanksgiving, and exactly a month later she's supposed to put on perfect Christmas for her grumpy dad and fighting kids. I wrote and produced the play... in 1992.

And since some things take a little longer to gestate than others, here it is in paperback. It's a little comedy of Christmas tragedies called "This Christmas Morning."

Enjoy Robin's song, download the screenplay, read the PDF order the book. My little Christmas present to you.

I'm also experimenting with publishing at lulu.com, in case you'd like to see how they print, ship and manage things and like a paperback for your reading pleasure. Try Lulu's version  "This Christmas Morning."

I dedicated it to my mom Kathryn and my best friend Arlen's mom Marie. Christmas isn't quite the same without them.

For now, let me know what you think of it. And, if you'd like to perform the stage play next Advent as a fun fund raiser, let me know. I did it as dinner theaters with 30 people and made enough to pay for my youth worker's salary in three weeks... once upon a time.

For now, enjoy the last mad rush and don't Choke on the Tinsel!

This Christmas Morning, Installment 23

Epilogue

A radio alarm began to blare “Jingle Bell Rock” from the top of the stairs. Dewey came barreling down shrieking, “Where’s my presents?” Leo and Ariel were on his heals, followed by

Roy

, Fern and, at last, Monty. Jana tried to convince everyone that they should pause and read the Christmas story like Grandma always used to do, but to no avail. Paper and bows were flying everywhere and everyone was wrapped up in unwrapping their gifts. Leo and Ariel began to fight over a large box with no tag attached. Monty opened a new cell phone and stepped into the closet to try it out. Fern removed the cover from a tiny jewel box, screamed and leaped into

Roy

’s arms, peppering him with kisses. Dewey managed to destroy another lamp as he tripped over the tree lights in a mad scavenge for additional presents. Grandpa watched it all for a moment, then disappeared to the bathroom and returned with an arm load of shopping bags.

Ariel opened hers first. She blinked and smiled as she tore the paper off a box of old Spartan yearbooks and a pile of antique love letters from WWII. “I thought you might find these interesting,” said Grandpa with a knowing wink. “Might learn a little something about real romance.”

Leo grinned and gave his old ally a high five at the “Mega Death” CD and two tickets to the “Wrestle-Mania Americana Extravaganza” coming to the Fargodome over spring break. “Grandpa, you’re way cool!”

“I know,” said Grandpa.

Fern thanked her future father-in-law for the cobalt blue antique bridal basket that had belonged to Melissa.

Roy

smiled at the box of ear plugs. Dewey thanked his new Grandpa for the twenty dollar bill. Monty was still in the closet so his present would have to wait.

Last of all, Grandpa presented Jana with a large, soft object wrapped roughly in newspaper comics and tied with bailing twine.

“Dad?”

“I thought you might like to finish this.”

Jana peeled the paper back and exhaled. “Mom’s quilt?” The beautiful work of love was stitched in a snowflake pattern of reds and greens with an unfinished cross inside a heart. The tears returned. Grandpa nodded and bit his lip. She squeezed him again.

Ariel’s scream broke the magic of the moment and Jana’s ears picked up the all-too-familiar sounds of a tinsel choking feline. Leo, Roy and Dewey dove for the cat. Monty stepped out of the closet and into the fray. “Get her out! Outside!” Jana joined the chase.

Leo caught the unfortunate animal by the tail and dashed her to the doorway, but found himself a fraction too late.

“Oooooh!” He dropped her on the stoop.

“Gross,” said Ariel.

“Neat,” said Dewey.

Leo looked down in disgust at the mess on his slippers, then smiled. “Uh, grandpa. I think I found your other cuff link.”

Monty and Leo looked up from the doorway, then motioned the others to join them. Across the yard near the barn, a large red-tailed hawk sat perched on a fence post. The bird watched them for a moment, then stretched out her strong wings.

“Thanks mom,” whispered Monty.

“Or God or whoever you are,” Jana added.

“What are they talking about?” asked Leo.

“They think your dead grandmother is a bird,” said Grandpa, trying his best to spoil the moment.

“Weird.” Leo shrugged his shoulders, handed the cuff link to his grandfather and returned to torment his sister.

And bowing her head as if to salute the holy morning, the hawk lifted off into the crisp country air. She made one lazy loop above the farm house, screeched out her “good-bye” and disappeared into the clouds.

Forever.

Note: This is a stage play. If you'd like to explore doing it as a dinner theater/fund raiser in your church next Advent, let me know.

This Christmas Morning, Installment 22

Chapter 8, Part 3

Grandpa slumped into his chair, suddenly worn. “Hope? That’s all I have. Hope.” He began to weep.

“Daddy, your little girl is hurting here and she doesn’t have...” He turned away. She grabbed his face, forcing him to look at her. “Daddy! Your little girl is hurting and she doesn’t have a mommy. Okay, her mommy isn’t gone. She’s dead. And now all she has is you. You!” He broke away from her eyes. “Daddy! Does she have you? Dad? I love you, Dad. But if you can’t let me love you, would you at least let me love the part of mom I see in you? Daddy. Dad?”

Grandpa began to shake. “Hope. Yes, I hope. But it still hurts. You can’t know how much it hurts...” His words turned to an uncontrollable sob. He could not fight both the tears and his daughter’s embrace. She wrapped herself tightly around his quivering frame, unwilling to let him go.

“Shhhh. Shhhh. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He spoke between gasps. “I know she’s with God. I know I’ll see her again someday. But it’s hard. So hard.”

“It’s hard for me, too.”

“I’ve been such a fool. Such an old fool.”

“Yes, dad.” She held him even tighter.

“An idiot. A complete idiot.”

Jana nodded. “An idiot.”

“A blind...”

She fed him the words “...stubborn...”

“ ...stubborn...”

“...mean...”

He pulled a tissue from her coat, “...mean...”

“...and nasty...”

“...mean and nasty old fool.”

“Yup.”

Grandpa blew his nose. “You don’t have to agree with me. You’ve never been so agreeable before.”

“You’ve never been so right before.” They held each other for a moment, half laughing, half crying. Finally it felt safe to let him go. “Dad, before when you said all you had left was hope? I’ve felt that way before. But it’s not true. We have each other. You have me and Monty and Roy. And Leo and Melissa...”

Grandpa sniffed. Ariel.

“What?”

Grandpa sniffed again. “Her name is Ariel. You know, like what you break off a car?”

“Right. Ariel. Ariel. And now Fern.” Jana smiled. “And Dewey.”

“Dewey?”

“Dewey!”

Grandpa took the tissue from Jana’s hand and blew his nose. “I was starting to feel so much better before you mentioned that name.”

She hit him gently in the chest. “Dad!”

“All right. All right,” she said. “And Dewey.”

“He’s part of our family now. You might as well accept it.”

“I don’t have to like him, do I?”

Jana wound her arms around her father but held him even more firmly with her eyes. “No. But you have to love him.”

“I suppose if I don’t you’re going to make me feel guilty.”

“Hey, love... guilt...”

“Sometimes part of the same emotion.”

They held each other for a moment longer. The house begin to stir. “I love you, dad.”

“I...” there was a long pause. Jana smiled and glared at the same time as he considered the words that were so hard for him to say. “...know.”

“Dad!”

“I said I know!”

“I said I love you.” She pounded his chest with each syllable. “Say it! I... love... you’ Say it! Why is it so hard for you to say it?” Jana grabbed his jaw, opening and closing it with each syllable. “I love you. I love you.”

“Okay! I love you. I love you! There! Are you happy?”

A broad smile spread over his daughter’s face. “Yeah. I’m happy. I’m happy. Merry Christmas, dad.”

“Yeah. Merry Christmas.” They embraced again. “I hate to spoil all this Christmas cheer and all,” said Grandpa, “but I gotta pee.”

She held him for a quiet minute more. Scents of his Old Spice mixed with the perfume in mother’s robe and for one mystical moment Jana forgot where she was again. Then suddenly she knew where she was.

Peace. She was at peace.

This Christmas Morning, Installment 20

Chapter 8, Part 1

Winter winds were howling outside the window and the Norwegian goat bells were clanging from the door as Jana woke to see her own frozen breath. At first she hoped that the pilot light was out in the furnace and that

Roy

would rise and light it before she was forced to put a foot on the icy wooden floor. She buried her head in the goose feather pillow. The clanging was joined by six chimes of the hallway clock. It gradually occurred to Jana that the front door must have blown open. She muttered a most un-Christmas-like greeting to the day, drew herself slowly up and pulled the robe tightly about her shoulders.

The music box lying in the center of the hallway floor was the second sign something was amiss. Grandpa was standing barefoot in the open doorway, dazed. He was holding a hatchet in one hand and a card in the other.

“What are you doing?” Jana asked. “What are you doing?”

“Shhhh.” There was a glazed look in his eyes.

“Waiting for Santa Claus.” His bare feet were covered with snow.

“What are you looking at?” She stepped to the door. “Grandpa? Dad?”

He lifted the hatchet in defiance. “Winter. Cold.”  

“Come out of the doorway. You’ll catch your death...”

“Death.” His voice was so sad. So very old.

“You’ll catch your death of cold.”

“The winter of my life...”

“What are you talking about?”

He laughed again; a laugh colder than the morning. “You have no idea.”

“Dad, I know what you must be feeling...”

“You don’t have any idea how I feel!” he snapped back angrily. “My world...”

“Life is not over just because mom is gone...”

Grandpa lifted the hatchet like a weapon. “My whole world came crashing to an end on Thanksgiving Day. Maybe not your world, but my world. My whole world! And it can never come back!” Grandpa’s voice turned suddenly soft. The hatchet fell from his hand onto the icy step. “She’s not gone, Jana. She’s dead. Dead. And no amount of hoping, no amount of praying is ever going to change that.”

“Dad, what’s...”

Grandpa walked slowly into the house, reading the card. “Happy Thanksgiving, Mr. Meyer. A very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year from your friends at the Thalacker Mortuary!” He ripped it in half and threw it in Jana’s face. “My world!”

“Stop talking like that! I’m your world, too. And Monty. And my Melissa and Leo.

Roy

and now Fern.”

He sneered. “Don’t say Dewey or you’ll ruin the mood.”

Jana was ready for this fight. “How dare you treat me like this! I come to this house, put on a happy face, drag out the decorations so that it will be nice for you and the kids...”

Grandpa tried to shout her out. “Okay! You want me to say that you’ve done a great job? Kid, everything is perfect! Just plain perfect! This is the best Christmas I ever...”

Jana wanted to slap him. “Now you’re patronizing me!”

“I didn’t ask you to...”

“You think I enjoy this charade? You think this is how I really feel - all Christmas cheer and smiles? You hard-hearted old...”

“What do you want from me?” he shouted.

“I just want...”

“What do you want?”

Jana bit her lip. “I want a Christmas that... I just want... I don’t know what I want. I’ve been so damn busy that I’ve forgotten what I... what... what am I doing all this for?”

“What?”

She tore a limb from the plastic tree. “Christmas. What are we doing it for? What is anybody doing it for?”

“No one asked you to come here.”

“Love asked me to come here! You old...”

“Guilt asked you to come here.”

“Ahhh!” Jana was too frustrated for words. She threw the branch at her father. “OK. Yes, love. Yes, guilt! Sometimes they’re part of the same emotion.”

This Christmas Morning, Installment 21

Chapter 8, Part 2

“I don’t need your pity.”

“I don’t have to pity you. You self-centered old ass!”

Grandpa clenched his teeth. “Don’t you ever use profanity in this house. If your mother were alive...”

“I don’t have to pity you. You’ve got enough for the whole family. You’ve locked yourself up in this big house of self-pity and now you’re drawing the curtains, bolting the shutters and pushing everyone who ever loved you...”

“Leave me alone!”

“Is that all you see? Yourself? Can’t you know I’m hurting, too? Part of me died that day, too, you know. A big part. She was your wife for thirty six years. But she was my mother all my life.”

“She wasn’t my wife. She was my life!” Grandpa’s anger melted to a whisper. “Can’t you know how much I hate myself? I killed her.”

“You didn’t kill her.”

“I killed her. I told her it was all in her head. I told her we couldn’t afford all that running back and forth to those expensive doctors in

Rochester

. I told her...”

“You didn’t kill her, dad! You didn’t. I didn’t. God didn’t take her so he’d have another alto in the choir. The disease killed her. If you want to be mad at anything, be mad at that. Strike out at that.” She reached to take his hand.

“Leave me alone.” He pulled quickly back, unable to be touched.

“Don’t push away the only ones who can help you... who love you. Your family. Your friends. Don’t push God...”

The word God snapped him back from pity to anger. The rage almost caught in his throat. “God? Where was this God of ours when your mother lay breathing her last? 84 lbs. - 84 lbs.!”

“I don’t know, but...”

He snatched Grandma’s worn Bible from the table and flung it across the room. “...wracked by such pain that the morphine didn’t even phase her.”

“I’ve asked the same question!”

“Where was this God when my prayers were a river of tears, and not one of them was answered?”

“I don’t know!”

“Where was this Christ if he was supposed to love her? Where?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know. Maybe he was hanging on a cross with a broken heart preparing to buy her eternity! You forgiveness. Me peace. Maybe God was there. That’s what you always taught me. Maybe God was holding us as we held each other. Maybe God was reaching to her, beckoning her from her pain to that perfect peace she always taught me to pray for! That’s what you believed all your life. You were the one who taught this hope to me! Dad! Don’t you believe it anymore? Is it all a lie? Some cruel joke to make the tragedy, the emptiness of death more palatable? Is that what Christmas is? Is that what your faith is? A joke? Wishful thinking? Or is hope real? You do still have hope, don’t you, Daddy? Daddy?” He couldn’t answer. “Then you’re right,” she concluded. “You have nothing to live for. You might as well be dead.”

This Christmas Morning, Installment 18

Chapter 7, Part 1

Grandpa was snoring loudly on the overstuffed chair. Jana finally finished in the kitchen and was hitting the lights as the clock struck midnight. She followed the snoring into the living room and leaned over to gently shake him. “Wake up, Grandpa. Wake up and go to sleep.” Straightening up, she rubbed her tired temples. “Now that makes a whole lot of sense.”

Grandpa stirred and spoke from a dream. “Melissa, tell Jana and Roy that they have got to do their chores or they can’t go to town.”

She looked down at the deep furrows in her father’s forehead and studied the wrinkles around his mouth. He seemed suddenly so much older than he had even a month before. For the first time she noticed the brown age spots on his hands. She wanted to lift the ancient hand and kiss it, but she resisted the urge. Smiling, she tucked the Afghan around him and turned to the window. She froze. Someone or something was standing in the shadows on the porch. Her heart began to race.

At first she wanted to call out or kick Grandpa. Then the figure lit a match. She smiled. It was twenty below and Mother still had enough hold on

Roy

to make him take his nicotine hit outside. Jana lifted a quilt from the couch and stepped out to join her brother.

“I thought you were asleep.”

Roy

shook his head and flicked the cigarette ashes into the snow. “Couldn’t. Went for a walk.” He put his strong arms around her and gave her a squeeze.

“Where’d you go?”

“Down to the bottom of the hill where we used to play in the big woods. It’s a shopping mall now.”

Jana nodded. “I saw it when we came for the funeral.”

“And the old school? You see that? Gone.”

“Yeah. Condos.” Jana sighed.

“Things really change, don’t they?”

“Some things do. Some don’t.” She leaned her head on her brother’s shoulder. “Do you love her?”

“Who?”

“Fern.”

“Of course I love her.”

“Are you going to marry her?”

 

Roy

shrugged his shoulders. Jana could sense his smile.  “Dewey.”

That’s all he needed to say.

 “Yeah. Dewey. You really must love her.”

 They stood together until Jana’s toes went numb. It felt so good to have someone hold her, even if it was only her brother. “Well, I’m going to turn in.”

 The clanging bells on the opening door almost brought Grandpa out of his dream. “I tell you, Missy,” he shouted, “some people would kick if they were hung with a new rope.”

 Jana leaned in over her father and tucked the blanket firmly around him. “Some things change. Some don’t.”

 

Roy

sat on the stairs and untied his

Sorels

. “It’s been really hard on him, hasn’t it? This last month.”

 “He doesn’t show it. Stubborn old goat.”

 “Tries not to.”

 “It’s either jokes or insults with him,” said Jana. “That’s his way of dealing with it.”

 “Dealing with it? That’s his way of denying it. Keeping people away. But how about you?”

 “Me?” Jana was caught off guard. This was the first time in a month that someone who wasn’t wearing a clergy collar had asked her about her own feelings. “I’m fine. Okay.”

Roy

opened his hands. Jana held back a moment, then accepted the invitation. She sat down next her brother and was encircled in his strong arms again. “No. I’m not okay. I’ll be okay. But I’m not okay. Not yet. Not just yet.” She fought the tears.

 “You know, no matter how old you are, as long as your parents are alive, you’re still somebody’s baby. Someone’s little girl. Little boy. But once they’re gone, you have to grow up quickly. You don’t have the luxury. The choice. Maybe deep inside it forces you to see that you’re not going to last forever, either.”

 “Maybe.” Jana lifted a tissue from the pocket of her mother’s robe and laughed as she cried. “I kinda like it the other way... somebody’s baby.”

 “Me, too.”

Roy

sighed. “Somebody’s baby. Well, I gotta go to bed. Big day tomorrow.”

 “Big day.”

 “And I’m sure that Dewey will be awake by six when the rooster crows.”

 Jana dabbed her eyes. “Or when the turkey he stashed under his bed starts to gobble.”

 

Roy

looked alarmed. “He didn’t...”

 “Gotcha.”

 

Roy

rose and plodded slowly halfway up the staircase. “Good night.” He paused without looking back. “You’re doing a good job. With Christmas, I mean.”

 “Thanks. That means a lot.”

 “Except, of course, for the gravy.”

 She threw a sofa pillow at him and turned to unplug the plastic tree.

This Christmas Morning, Installment 17

Chapter 5, Part 3

Monty’s cell phone went off as the plate passed. Jana snatched it from his hand and dropped it in, along with a check that had one too many zeroes on it. Pastor returned to the pulpit and began a talk about God interrupting the ordinary with news of the extraordinary and something about soteriology and the clear Christocentrism of the early desert fathers.

“What’s he talking about?” asked Dewey, wishing the pastor would get back to the shepherds.

“I don’t know,” shrugged Grandpa. “I never know what he’s talking about.”

Dewey looked back at the ushers as they gathered the plates together in the back of the sanctuary. “How much did you get?” he asked Grandpa. Fern shushed her son before Jana could reach him. “How much did you get?”

Grandpa raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“How much? From the offering plate?” Dewey waved a bill in the air. “I got a twenty.”

Grandpa snatched the greenback from the boy. “Give me that.” He looked about and discretely tucked it in his own jacket pocket.

Dewey began to color in the hymn book. “I wonder what they’re going to do with my dad’s quarter?”

“What do you mean?”

“With the quarter my dad threw in the plate. What do they do with it?”

“I don’t know,” said Grandpa. “Probably send it to the missionaries or something.”

“How do they send it?”

“What?”

“How do the missionaries get it?”

“Huh? Oh, in the mail, I suppose.”

“Oh.” Dewey’s brow wrinkled up. “But it takes thirty-five cents just for a stamp. If they send it to the missionaries, they’ll end up owing ten cents for each letter.”

Grandpa shook his head. “If everyone did that, the missionaries would go broke in no time.”

“He should have given the missionaries another dime.”

“Yeah. Cheapskate.”

Five minutes into the sermon Dewey dropped the hymnal and crawled under the pew. “What kind of place is this, anyway?”

Grandpa pulled the boy up by the collar and plopped him back in place. “It’s a church. A Christmas place. Now sit down and shut up. They’re talking about God’s love.”

Dewey looked about. “If this is a Christmas place how come I don’t see a single window with Santa on it? There’s not one stinking reindeer in the whole building. They do have a Christmas tree, though.”

“Plastic,” grumped Grandpa.

Fern shushed them both, then added, “You’re not supposed to talk in church.”

“He is!” Dewey’s voice was loud enough for all to hear. He pointed up at the preacher, who paused a moment and lost the place in his manuscript.

Grandpa bent over the boy. “Let me explain here. You know the origin of Santa Claus...”

“What’s a origin?” asked Dewey.

“That’s where he comes from.”

“Well, du-uh! He comes from the North Pole.”

Grandpa shook his head. “No. Not the fictionary peeping Tom in the red union suit Santa Claus. The original Santa Claus was Saint Nicholas. He was a fine Christian man who cared for the poor and gave food to the hungry and homeless on Christmas.”

“If they were homeless, how did he get it down their chimneys?”

“He didn’t.” Grandpa’s blood pressure was beginning to rise. “He doesn’t. He went from place to place helping real people with real problems. And not just at Christmas, either. He helped them all the time.”

“Why?”

“Because he was... he was... I don’t know. I suppose he was grateful.”

“For what?”

Grandpa didn’t answer until the sermon was over and the ushers began to hand out candles. “For life,” he whispered. Then he whispered it again. 

Dewey had forgotten the question. “What?”

“The real Saint Nicholas gave gifts to the poor because he was thankful for life. Family. For all his many blessings. I don’t know. Ask him yourself tonight when he shows up to bring your coal.”

Dewey paused, then returned to coloring pages in the hymnal. “Was there a real Mrs. Saint Nicholas?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t.”

“I think there was,” said Dewey.

Grandpa forgot for a moment that he disliked the boy. “Why’s that?”

Dewey didn’t miss a beat. “Because most old men need a round old woman to keep them from getting too cranky.”

“You’re probably right, kid. You’re probably right.”

The congregation rose to light their candles and sing the closing Doxology. Dewey had heard this one before. He saved his voice for the last phrase and belted it out loud above the congregation. “Praise father, son and whole wheat toast!”

“Whole wheat toast?” thought Grandpa out loud. “Inexpensive day old bread. With the jelly toast proclaim. Kid’s got some kind of wheat deficiency.”

The worshippers sang out a final “amen” and Jana ushered the family out before anyone had a chance to talk to them.

This Christmas Morning, Installment 16

Chapter 6: Nervous Service

Jana shuddered at a little man with a farmer’s tan line across his forehead and a $50 toupee and led her small entourage to the only pew left in the church, directly beneath the new preacher’s nose. She pulled the iPod  headset from Leo’s ears and begged Ariel to put her nail file away. They shuffled in, saving one space for Grandpa, who was parking the Buick.

“How come we have to sit in the front row?” complained Dewey, in a voice well above a whisper.

Jana clenched her teeth into a smile. “Because we’re late and these are the only seats left.”

“How come these are the only seats left?”

Leo leaned over to Dewey. “Because everybody goes to church on Christmas. It’s tradition.”

“What’s tradition?”

Leo looked around, then leaned in again. “It’s something you always do because you’ve always done it before whether anyone knows why you’re doing it or not.”

The bell choir finished their rendition of “Oh, Holy Night” and the student pastor began three pages of announcements about who gave the memorials for the radio service, who died that year and who still owed on their pledges. Dewey stood on the pew and turned to look for Grandpa in the back of the church. “How come we’re late?”

Jana pulled him down. “Because your Uncle Monty was on the phone talking business when we should have been leaving.”

“How come he made a business call on Christmas Eve?”

Jana was determined not to let him get her riled up in front of the fifteen blue haired Sunday School teachers who had known her since she was three - all who happened to be staring directly at them at this very moment. “That’s one you can ask him yourself, Dewey.”

The readings, the children’s sermon and the hymns were all beautiful and went on without incident. Jana forgot herself for a moment and actually enjoyed fifteen minutes of peace. She faltered when the children’s choir sang “Away in a Manger.” Mother had always loved it when the little ones sang. Mrs. Boone, an elderly friend of her mother, leaned over and handed her a lace hanky embroidered with golden angels. Jana fumbled through her own purse for a tissue, unable and unwilling to blow her nose on angels.

Grandpa didn’t show up until the pastor entered the pulpit to read the Christmas Gospel. He sneered to see the only space open was next to Dewey, then waddled in to sit with tightly-folded arms and nose in the air.

“And in that region there were shepherds out in the fields keeping watch over their flocks by night,” the preacher began in a soothing bass voice. “And an angel of the Lord appeared and the glory of the Lord shone round and they were filled with fear. The angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you wondrous news of joy to all the people for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign to you, you’ll find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to those with whom God is well pleased.’”

Jana glanced at Dewey. The boy was transfixed by the words. It was if he had heard them the first time. Perhaps he had. “Peace on earth?” she sighed to herself. “Peace on earth.”

“We will now take our Christmas offering as the choir sings a new song written especially for our worship this day,” the pastor said.

Grandpa reached reluctantly for his wallet. “Great. I’m late parking the car and I still make it in time for the offering. Once more around the lot and I would have missed it.”

Roy nudged his father. “How come they’re doing the offering before the sermon at church now?”

“Have you ever heard this guy preach?”

“No,” Roy looked puzzled. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Grandpa smiled. “If they waited until after the sermon, no one would give a cent.”

This Christmas Morning, Installment 15

Chapter 5, Part 2

Jana turned to “Silent Night” and wished it was one. “Everybody know this one. Come on. Let’s sing.”

Silent night, holy night

All is calm, all is bright

Round yon Virgin mother and child,

Holy infant so tender and mild,

Sleep in heavenly peace.

Sleep in heavenly peace.”

 

“Who’s Round John Virgin?” asked Dewey. “Is he really fat?” The doorbell rang and the boy jumped up to answer it. Racing past the couch, he tripped over Grandpa’s golf clubs. Leo commenced to laugh until his mother glared him into silence. Jana turned to her father. “Are you through with those golf clubs, dad? I thought I told you to put them away if you were through with them.”

Grandpa looked up. “Oh, what happened?”

“Dewey tripped over them.”

Grandpa winked at Leo. “Then I’m through with them.”

Dewey hobbled over to the door and pulled it open. A gust of wind chilled the room and the goat bells clanged. A group of carolers had gathered on the porch and were beginning their serenade. Dewey blinked at them twice, then slammed the door.

“Who was it, Dewey?” asked Fern.

“I don’t know. Somebody wanting money, I think,” said Dewey.

“Singing beggars?”

“Yeah. You can’t be too careful out here in the country. They’ll rob you blind. They distract you at the front door while their partners come in the kitchen and clean you out from the back door.”

“Let them in, Dewey.”

The high school singing group decked in red and green stepped in and took their places in the entry. They sang “Lo, How A Rose” and “Deck the Halls” for starters. They performed “O Tannenbaum” in German and “Jer Er Saa Glad” in Norwegian. Jana watched Grandpa’s eyes trail to the floor as they began “In the Bleak Mid-Winter.” He had recognized the hand-sewn green capes and red berets as his wife’s work. He brushed a tear from his eye.

Dewey took center stage as the carols concluded with “Angels We Have Heard On High” and belted out his new “inexpensive day old bread!” line to replace the “in excelsius deo” part.

Grandpa picked up the repotted poinsettia, preparing to strike. His upper lip twitched a forced smile.

“Put the plant down dad,” smiled Jana.

“I’m going to get him,” muttered Grandpa, resisting the urge to usher the carolers to the door so he could slap the little Dewdster silly.

This Christmas Morning, Installment 14

Chapter 5: Carol Time

The feast was over and the family cleared their dishes from the table. Grandpa excused himself and stepped into the hallway closet. Moments later he emerged with a large bag of mixed bird seed and headed for the door.

“What are you doing with that bird seed, Grandpa?” asked Ariel.

“Oh, just bringing it out to put some more by the cat feeder next to the front window,” he answered.

“You mean the bird feeder,” Ariel corrected.

“No.” As he spoke, a blue jay hit the front window and fell to the ground, dazed. “I mean cat feeder.” Grandpa opened the door. “Here kitty, kitty.”

Roy

took Dewey to the barn to see the manure spreader and fill him in on some of the finer points of rural etiquette. He had just finished his expose on ice-house taboos and peeing in the snow when the topic turned to the unwritten rules at Grandpa’s house. “Another tradition we have at here is that after dinner when the dishes are done, we all sit around the piano and sing Christmas carols.”

“What songs do you sing?” asked the boy.

“The old traditional favorites. You know, like the carols they sing at church.”

“I don’t go to church,” said Dewey flatly.

“We’re all going to church tonight as a family,”

Roy

announced, preempting his sister’s sure and certain statement.

“When I’m with my real dad I never have to go to church,” said Dewey. “The last time he was in church he got mad at the pastor and hasn’t been back since.”

“When was that?” asked Leo.

“I don’t know,” said Dewey. “At his confirmation or something.

Mom walked over to help Ariel sift through the piano bench for some of the old Christmas favorites. “Where are all the old carol books?” asked Ariel.

Jana began to dig in the piano bench. “They’re in here somewhere. Grandma always...”

Ariel wasn’t looking too hard. “I don’t think they’re in here.”

Jana looked toward her father. “Grandpa, any ideas?”

“I put them in a box to Goodwill with all the rest of your mother’s old stuff,” said Grandpa, smiling.

Jana glared in anticipation. “What old stuff?”

“You know. All her clothes and sewing and stuff.”

She dropped the green hymnal onto the floor. “You didn’t throw her quilting?”

“I don’t know.”

“Dad!” Jana stormed over to her father. “She was making a quilt for us before she died. The red and green one with the snowflake pattern and the heart and cross in the middle? The last thing she asked me was if I’d finish it and give it to Ariel from the both of us.”

Grandpa was not impressed. “I don’t know where it is.”

“Dad!”

“Hey, I’m sorry.” He wasn’t. “Let’s sing.”

Jana wasn’t through with this. “I can’t believe you’d throw the quilt away!”

Grandpa grimaced. “In the words of my beloved daughter: Can we talk about something else?”

Ariel gave up the search and began to thumb through the AARP magazines for a Seventeen. “All that’s in this bench is one old Norwegian song book.”

“Are the notes in Norwegian?” asked Grandpa.

“No.”

“Good. Then play them,” the old man smiled. “Mom, you do it.”

Jana wasn’t through with the quilt issue. “I can’t believe you threw the quilt.”

“Are we going to sing or simply sit here and dwell on the past?”

Ariel found a favorite hymn in the book. “Let’s do this one.”

Jana began to hammer out “Good King Win-ceslas” and the family gathered slowly around grandma’s perfectly tuned piano to massacre the song:

Good King Wincheslas la la,

on the feast of Stephen,

When the la la la la la

Deep and crisp and even.

Brightly la la la la la

la la la la cruel,

When la la la la in sight, gathering winter fuel.

 

Jana turned the page. “OK. Here’s an easier one.” She plinked out the first lines of “Hark the Herald Angels.”

“I know this one!” shouted Dewey as he belted it out at the top of his lungs:

Hark the herald angels sing,

glory to the newborn king,

Peace on earth, and mercy mild 

God and sinner reconciled

Joyful all ye nations rise, 

Join the triumph of the skies,

With the jelly toast proclaim...

 

“It’s angelic hosts, Dewey,’” said Jana. “Angelic hosts.” She turned to “It Came Upon A Midnight Clear”. “Everybody knows this one.”

Ariel decided to correct everyone on the “peace on the earth, good will to men” line. “It’s not men any more. It’s good will to all...”

Leo sighed. “It’s men.”

“All!” Ariel screamed, shoving her brother. “That’s excluding me as a woman!”

“I’d like to exclude you as a sister!”

“Mom. He’s so mean.” She shoved him again.

“Besides, you’re not a woman,” Leo continued.

She took a swing at him. “Mom!”

“That’s enough!” Jana began to pound out “Angels We Have Heard On High.” Everyone except Dewey knew that one. When they got to the “gloria in excelsis deo” part, Dewey thought they were singing “inexpensive day old”.

“It’s Excelsis Deo,” said

Roy

.

“Egg shells?” asked Dewey.

Fern fetched a comb from her imitation Gucci handbag and attempted to straighten the cowlick in her son’s hair. “Let’s do one Dewey knows. What would you like to do, Dewey?”

Dewey nodded proudly. “We Three Kings.”

“I can play that,” smiled Jana. “Dewey, why don’t you sing a solo for us?” Dewey happily obliged:

We three kings of glory and tar, tried to smoke a burning cigar.

“What a little brat,” smirked Ariel.

“Mom, she’s calling me names!” Dewey objected, tugging on his mother’s dress until a strap snapped.

Grandpa placed a surprisingly gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Maybe he should have called you a taxi.”