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'Run That By Me Again,' from a real newspaper column of stuff and nonsense

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Hickory Farms

We'll call her Christmas

By
Bob Markwalter

"Are you sure we want this tree? This particular one?"

The girl looked at the tree, nodded, and told him, "Yes, this one."

"It's ... well, not as, full as most of the others."

"No one will want it. That's why we do."

She smiled up at him. She looked more like him than her mother, but taking the tree no one else would want, that was Sarah. He blinked, knelt with the saw, and began to work at the trunk of the scrawny little tree.

She stood silently in the snow as he worked. It was getting late, and the air was sharp in the slanting sun. He worked quickly and in a few minutes they were dragging the tree to the station wagon.

"We'll probably have to set it up tomorrow," he told her.

"Maybe tonight," she replied.

"Maybe," he said.

They paid for the tree, tied it to the top of the wagon as the owner of the tree farm looked on with a smile, then drove home. He leaned the tree against the side of the house and went in to shed his boots and coat. She was waiting, already had something on the stove.

He walked into the warmth of the kitchen and she told him, "It's a special tree, you know."

"It must be, if you want it."

"No, I mean really special."

"Want to bake some cookies tomorrow?"

"Can we set up the tree tonight?"

"It's awfully late ..."

She heated soup as he set up the tree stand, and they sat at the kitchen table and ate in silence until he said, "How about those cookies?"

She laughed. They never had luck with cookies. There was the year he managed to measure out a cup of salt instead of a cup of sugar. He still puckered at the thought. There was the year they made gingerbread people. There was enough dough to feed the whole neighborhood, the cookie cutters were about two inches tall, and they finished with a literal army of tiny gingerbread people.

He spooned up the last of his soup and put his dish in the sink. "You get the door," he told her.

The tree leaned first to the right, then the left, then it was up. It was small and its branches were spaced unevenly and its crown split into two parts. "Where will we put the star?" he asked.

"We can move it from one branch to the other," she answered.

She was practical, he thought, again like Sarah. He looked at the tree, knew they would not need all the lights, could not put up all the ornaments, was glad they had this tree.

"It is special, isn't it?" she asked.

"Very special," he told her. "Ready to string the lights?"

They sorted the strands that worked from the ones that didn't and began to twine the lights around the tree. She liked to see lots of lights, so they worked them deep into the branches. They stood back and smiled.

The ornaments came out one by one, they told each other the stories behind them, how mother had found this one, how this had been Grandmother Ruth's, that Grandmother Staley's, this the one she had made in kindergarten. They came to Baby's First Christmas and she smiled. She always hung that one, choosing carefully where it would go.

"Was I tiny?" she asked as she looked carefully among the branches and lights and ornaments.

"You were just beginning to crawl," he remembered, trying not to go too far away. "We couldn't hang lights or ornaments near the floor."

"Did I see Santa?"

"Yes, and you weren't a bit afraid of him, like a lot of babies are."

"I pulled his beard."

"But not hard, and he laughed."

"Here," she said finally. "This is the right branch."

She reached out to hang the ornament then stopped, her hand motionless. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open. She turned to hand him the ornament, then reached into the tree and pulled out a tiny kitten. The kitten blinked, mewed weakly, then purred as she put it to her cheek.

"The poor thing is so cold," she said. "All that time, sitting in the tree, just warming up."

They warmed the kitten more, fed it, and sat on the couch in front of the tree. She held the kitten on her shoulder, listening to it purr. He looked to see her first Christmas ornament where he had laid it on the footstool.

"You put it up, please," she said.

He put the hook over the branch she had chosen and looked around at her and the kitten.

"We'll call her Christmas," she told him. "Tomorrow, we'll get a first Christmas ornament for her. And she can help us bake cookies."

He smiled, blinked, nodded, and sat with her to gaze at the special tree.

Copyright 2000, Robert A. Markwalter

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