A Request

There hasn’t been a Christmas in Bethlehem that there wasn’t snow clinging to the pine bows. The silence of the wood prints its own Christmas card in my soul and for a few days I tolerate if not relish the cold bite of the north country, but this year Robin and I went on our pilgrimage to the Rock’s Tree Farm under a low hanging ceiling of fog as dense as Jennifer’s oatmeal. Instead of plowing through drifts we slogged around muddy ruts and admired the undisturbed rain drops clinging to the top bows, residue from the previous night rain.

When the temperatures are above freezing the time it takes to find the perfect tree diminishes considerably. In need of some exercise and knowing that unless we made a thorough search of the spread of trees planted between moss covered rock walls and outcroppings we wouldn't do justice to any tree we found, we covered the upper and lower fields reminiscing about previous ventures to The Rocks. No story tops the minus fifty-seven degrees, with strong winds riding over the hill crests that carried us long faster than either of us wished. Robin accused me of pushing her and I charged her of running away from me. We still laugh about that, and got one of the most beautiful trees ever.

On Christmas Day we did not open presents until late that evening-after dinner, after dessert and after dishes. We might have been avoiding an empty joy of exchanging gifts without mom, but we had done the same thing the year before.

We got up late, had breakfast and while Dad and Darryl went off to see the remains of the Man in the Mountain Jennifer, Robin and I went for a walk. Along the way I collected three dollars worth of returnable beer cans. The cloud cover lifted and gave us a spectacular view of Mount Washington, covered with snow gleaming in the sunlight. It looked out of place behind the lower darker foot hills. How warm was it? Jennifer found a four leaf clover. On Christmas Day! That has to mean something.

When we returned to the cabin sitting above Otter Pond, Darryl and Dad were still out. The three of us opened our stockings, each missing Mom, yet determined to share the day as if she was still with us. In the past Mom had always been Santa Claus. Our stocking might be as old as we are, but we still hang them anticipating a special magic to come in the night to fill them.

Last year “Santa” forgot the shopping bag of presents—a small collection of Avon products, chocolate coins covered in gold foil, oranges and one dollar bills—left behind in New York, the bag never made it into the sleigh. The elf error never fazed Mom. Foraging into her purse she came up with band aids, safety pins, used tubes of hand lotion and other notions to put into our stockings. After all, we were not bad.

This was when I missed Mom most. The stockings were her signature. But during the night her daughters put those things their mother would have into the empty stockings—the oranges, the chocolate coins, the Avon creams and lotions. Some gifts still had their price tags; it was a habit Santa had. Mom was with us.

Robin’s venison racks were fantastic—moist, tender and without a gamey taste expected of wild deer. Cooked to a medium if not medium rare, it melted under a knife and certainly did so in the mouth. There wasn’t any apple pie, but Jennifer baked enough cookies to serve a division of soldiers so Darryl trooped out for vanilla ice cream and found a quart at an opened gas station. After we finished munchin' we opened our gifts.

Jennifer wrote the family a beautiful little poem that touched us all, leaving Dad in tears. We all missed her, each in our own way, yet we celebrated Christmas as she would have wanted us to do and as we all wanted to.

Before leaving the house on Tuesday, I crawled behind the couch, searched under the baseboard registers and peeked under the bed in a last ditch attempt to find my missing $1800 watch. It remains lost. Could it be in the back seat of Mike’s car?