Having been a Jehovah’s Witness for a good part of the last twenty years, I am not in the habit of thinking holiday celebration. But they have moved on without me. I am a bah-humbug door-knocker no longer. So, I guess it’s time to recall how much this time of year used to mean to me. I searched my writing. So far the only holiday scene I have written is from Snow Babies. The characters in this scene are all severely snowed in and the electricity is out. They have decided to pass the time by putting up the Christmas tree without lights. The blizzard rages. It is an intense time where survival is not guaranteed. Hence, the need to remember the season.
Excerpt from Snow Babies.
Canto Seventy-Three – A Red, Green, and White Christmas Tree Block
The thing about the artificial Christmas tree, although it was plastic and solid forest green in a very unnatural way, was that it did look pretty good when you put all the right pegs into all the right slots and got it standing up by itself all full and fluffed out and green. It looked like a real tree… maybe… a little bit.
Denny handed a frosted red ball up to Valerie. Because she commanded the heights from the stepstool, she got to place each precious glass or plastic ornament. The Clarkes had a full string of bubble lights, but since the electricity was still out, Val didn’t see any reason to place the thing. The red ball went on the spot near the center front where Valerie had hung it the two years previous. The only difference was… well, the difference was… yes, the difference was… that Tommy Bons, all attitude and dirty blue jacket was standing in the spot where… you know, the spot where… the spot where someone needed to stand to catch Valerie if she overbalanced and fell towards the tree. The place where last year… her father stood.
Pidney was watching with some concern. “Why are there tears in your eyes, Val?” he asked stupidly.
“Well, I… no reason.”
Tommy caught her flitting glance with his steady blue gaze. He looked deeply into her eyes. Then, she saw what she never expected to see. Tears stood in his eyes too. Without saying or hearing a word about it, he understood. He knew. She could see it in his eyes. He knew what it was. He hadn’t just lost his father. Both of them. At once. In a car crash. Like Ponyboy in the Outsiders. Jeez she loved that book.
“You gonna put up the Santa thingy?” Pidney asked.
Mary Philips pulled the Santa thingy out of the box. It was made of Styrofoam balls, red felt, white cotton fluff, and black button eyes. And when she turned it over, on the bottom, it said, “to pretty little Princess, from Daddy Kyle.” The tears came like rain. Valerie crumpled into Tommy’s arms, weeping desperately.
“I… I don’t understand,” said Pidney. “I thought putting up a Christmas tree was a happy thing.”
Valerie had both arms wrapped around Tommy, squeezing the juice out of him, and crying like her heart was breaking. No… not breaking… broken. Shattered into little shards of glass, and scattered like snowflakes on a December morning.
Wordlessly Mary showed Pid what was written in black felt-tip marker on the bottom of the Santa thingy.
“Oh,” said Pid. “He made that himself, didn’t he?”
Valerie couldn’t answer. She sobbed like she could barely breathe.
Dennis limped up to Pidney and stood beside the big dumb oaf. He reached his small hand out to Mary, and she put the Santa thingy in it.
“This is really neat,” he said. “It’s like the ones my grandma made for me with Styrofoam and knitted all the clothes for and stuff. I wish I still had those.”
Valerie slowed the tears for a moment and looked at Dennis. He was a really cute little boy when you looked past the crooked little legs and the thin frame. And he had such a darling and gentle manner about him. He made you want to hug him until all the juice came out of him too. She loosened her death-grip on Tommy.
“He bought a stupid little crafts book,” said Valerie. “He was gonna give it to me along with the cabbage patch doll he bought. Then he decided to make that silly little Santa man from one of the craft patterns in the book. He did it all by himself, and gave it to me as a surprise gift. He did all of it. He did it all by himself.” It was the first time she had told that story to anyone. It was the first time she’d even remembered about something he gave her since… Well, it was a silly thing, but she did love it. “Can I have that?” she asked Denny.
“Sure,” he put it in her hands with a puckish smile.
“I think it goes near the top this year. Not in place of the angel, but right near her, to keep her company.”
Valerie got back up onto the stepstool and placed the Santa thingy near the top at just to the left of center. She looked at it and began to smile.
“Yep,” said Tommy, “the tree looks pretty stupid without lights, but that looks just about right to put it there.”
Valerie laughed at him.
Pidney moved over beside Mary and put an arm around her shoulders. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I’m really not as dumb as that, you know.”
“Yes you are,” whispered Mary, “but we love you anyway.”
Valerie heard that, and laughed all the harder. This Christmas tree thing was going to continue to hurt. And Pid was pretty dumb sometimes. But Mary was right. It had to be said. Valerie loved him anyway.
The little Iowa town where all my hometown novels are set is based on the little town where I grew up and spent all of my school years from Kindergarten to Senior Year of High School. I call it Norwall. It has all the same letters in it as the town of Rowan, the real town behind all my farm-boy fantasies. I also added an “L” for love and an “L” for laughter. All these stories, whether written already or still percolating in my demented bean, are set in this little town.
Catch a Falling Star 