Christmas Stories and a Gift

I love writing short stories, and after a few years of writing them, I have found that a great many of these stories take place in winter or around the holidays. So I went all in and decided that each year I would compile a collection of Christmas stories and publish them. Mainly as a gift for my family and friends, but also for anyone else who likes to read holiday stories as much as I like to write them.

Last year was the first of these books, Holiday Tales of Snow and Ice. It contains stories that I had written about the holidays over several previous years.

This year’s collection is of five brand new stories, never before published. Snowflakes and Persimmon Tea: A Holiday Collection of Short Stories. It is available now as an ebook and is also in print. Click the book title for links to purchase.

I hope everyone is taking the time this season to slow down and enjoy the joys of winter, of family, and of inward reflection.

My gift to you is the short story, Christmas Blizzard. This was in last year’s collection and is based on my own childhood memories of the Christmas Blizzard of 1982 in Denver. I hope you enjoy it.

Christmas Blizzard

Laurie woke up and looked outside at the crabapple tree in the back yard. The tree limbs that filled her window’s view were dusted with snow and some flakes were continuing to fall as she looked. If she listened closely, she could hear them softly patting against the window glass.

Her stomach grumbled and she rubbed it through her blue flannel pajamas. Aside from hunger, her stomach felt like a ball of nerves from excitement and anxiousness. It was Christmas Eve, her favorite holiday, but she was also expected to read at the Children’s Christmas Mass that afternoon.

She was nervous about reading in front of a large group of people at the church. She had practiced, and her mom said she read well, but it was the thought of a bunch of people watching her that made her stomach tighten up and her skin itch.

Getting up out of her warm bed, she hurried over the cold wooden floor of her pink bedroom to the bathroom in the hall that she shared with her parents. While she brushed her teeth and washed her face she could hear her mother in the kitchen downstairs. She could also hear her younger brother, Michael, talking loudly about building a snowman.

Later, while eating pancakes with maple syrup and blueberries, her parents discussed the weather over coffee. It sounded like there could be a lot more snow coming.

“At least I don’t have to drive in to work tomorrow,” her mom said while looking out the kitchen window. Then she picked up the bottle of syrup before Michael could finish drowning his pancakes in the dark and sticky puddle already formed on his plate.

The hospital where her mom worked as a nurse never closed, of course. But the nurses took turns having the various holidays of the year off, and this was her lucky year for Christmas. Her dad was also home for the holiday, but it looked like today he would be spending his time shoveling the sidewalks and driveway.

Laurie spent the rest of the morning wrapping her gifts for her parents and brother. The gifts for her parents were ones she had made in school in art class, some ornaments for the Christmas tree. The gift for her brother was a book her mother had helped her pick out and buy at the bookstore last week.

Just as she put the wrapped packages under the tree, her brother ran into the living room, his blond hair was hidden under a red stocking hat and a blue scarf, so long that it dragged on the floor, was wrapped around his neck twice.

“Come out and build a snowman with me!”

Laurie looked out the window. The snow was really coming down hard now.

She shook her head, “I have to practice my reading for Mass.”

“Ah. You’ve been practicing all week. It’s Christmas! Let’s have some fun.”

“It’s too cold,” she said with a little shiver. “You should wait until the snow stops.”

Just then they heard their dad come in at the kitchen entrance and stamp the snow from his boots. He had been out shoveling the driveway, trying to keep up with the snow.

They both went into the kitchen and saw him shaking snow from his hat into the sink. Laurie could smell wet wool.

“I’m going to make a snowman!” her brother said.

Their dad looked at him and smiled. “I would wait a bit before you go out there. It’s really coming down hard now and it’s getting too deep for your short legs.”

Mom had been mixing batter for a chocolate cake and the kitchen was nice and warm from the heating oven. She looked out the window anxiously.

“I sure hope we don’t lose power. It would be too dangerous to drive anywhere for warmth right now.”

She looked at the stove where spaghetti sauce was bubbling softly, filling the air with the scent of fennel seed, basil, oregano and wine. “At least dinner is mostly cooked.”

Dad smiled. “We can eat by candlelight.”

Mom looked over to Laurie. “Honey, I think you should call over to the church and see if they’re still going to have the Children’s Mass. With this weather, they might just cancel it.”

A little flare of hope made Laurie’s breath catch. She’d love to not have to read in front of a bunch of people. But when she called, the secretary at the rectory said that she was about to head home, but as far as she knew the Children’s Mass was still happening.

Laurie was wrapped up head to toe in wool. Wool socks, wool pants, a long wool coat, wool scarf, wool hat, and wood mittens. At least the shirt she wore under the coat was velour so she wasn’t itching all over.

“Stop fussing,” her mother said as she tucked the ends of Laurie’s scarf inside the coat. “We need to stay warm and keep as dry as possible if we’re walking through this mess to get to the church.”

Only Laurie and her mother were making the trip to church. Her dad was concerned about keeping up with the snow, and her brother was too short to hike through the snow drifts.

Laurie could tell that mom wasn’t happy about having to go out into the storm. But Laurie had made a commitment to be the reader at the Mass, so out into the storm they would go.

Her mother led the way as they pushed through the snow where they thought the sidewalks might be. Very few people had been shoveling. Most would want to wait until the snow stopped falling, their dad had said, but if he waited until tomorrow to shovel, the snow might get so deep that there’d be no getting out.

He was from South Dakota and mom had teased him about worrying for nothing. They rarely got huge snowstorms in Denver. Not like he said he remembered from his childhood.

Laurie wasn’t so sure now. The wind was blowing the falling snow so hard that she could barely see her mother in front of her. Two blocks from the house, they got to the local park that stretched a full city block.

The school she attended and the church, St. James Catholic Church, were only a block past the park. But they may as well have been in the middle of the prairie. She knew that there was a row of houses across the street to her left, but she couldn’t see them.

She thought about the Laura Ingalls Wilder stories she had read, and others, about living in the mid-west and west before cities were built. She knew that people could get lost in snow like this and end up freezing just yards away from their front door because they couldn’t see through the storm.

Her head was bent over, and she was looking down at the snow, but snowflakes were still blowing into her face and sticking to her eyelashes. She tried to blink them clear but had to reach up and brush the snow away with her gloves which were themselves covered now in snow.

Melting snow trickled down into her boots as the snow came up higher than her boot tops where her pants were tucked into them.

“Almost there, honey,” her mom called to her.

When they made it to the church and opened the doors, they saw a small pile of boots under a coatrack in the entryway. Coats, hats, and the boots were all covered in snow that was slowly melting onto the carpet.

Laurie looked through the doorway into the nave of the church and the sanctuary beyond. The lights were turned down low but there were lit candles on the altar and advent wreath, and there were twinkle lights wrapped around evergreen wreaths and hung up on the red-brick pillars around the nave.

Everything looked warm and cozy and magical. Very few people were there, and the Mass ended up being held for just fifteen of the neighbors who had made it to the church.

Laurie didn’t mind reading out loud for the small group. The dark of the low lights kept her from seeing their faces and it felt like it was just her and the priest near the altar where the candle flickered beautifully.

There was no choir, but everyone there sang the simple Christmas tunes selected by the priest. Laurie’s favorite, “Silent Night”, was sung at the end of Mass, and it felt like they were the only people in the world with everything so quiet around them and outside. The snow had dampened all the sound of the world.

After they bundled again into their woolens and stepped outside into the dusk, Laurie’s dad was standing there all bundled up as well and holding a shovel. Snow was flying across him sideways in gusts of wind.

“They’re finally calling this a blizzard. I came to help you home.”

Mom just shook her head, but Laurie thought she was secretly glad he was there in case the snow became too deep.

It was the strangest Christmas Eve that Laurie had ever experienced, but she knew it would be one they always remembered.

Dad had finally given up on shoveling, but he had made a good start to getting the driveway and sidewalks cleared the next day. Grandma had been calling and making transportation arrangements for everyone to get to her house for Christmas dinner the next day. It would mean more trudging through snow in the morning to reach the street where her mom’s brother would pick them up in his large camper truck.

Mom had said that they were all fools for risking this trip, but her brother said the snow would stop that night and he had chains for the tires. He said the major thoroughfares would be somewhat cleared and he didn’t think it should be a problem.

Mostly, we all knew that Grandma was insisting we all be there for Christmas, so everyone would do their best.

The power never went out, but while Mom set out the dinner of spaghetti and bread and salad, Dad turned most of the lights off except for the strands of colored lights on the tree and he lit candles on the table and side tables so they could have their dinner by candlelight.

Outside, the lights from the street and their neighbors’ windows all caused the snow to glow and made the night eerily bright, and they left the curtains open so they could watch the snow falling on the drifts of snow that filled the yard and their back patio.

“Will Santa have trouble with the snow?” Michael asked around a mouthful of spaghetti.

“I think he should be fine,” their dad said. He looked up to the ceiling, “I just hope our roof holds with the weight of the sleigh and reindeer on all that snow up there.”

Michael gasped before shoveling in another forkful of noodles.

Laurie looked at her mom. “Could that really happen? I mean, the weight of the snow bring down the roof?”

Her mom rolled her eyes at dad but nodded and said, “Yes, it sometimes happens with flat-roofed homes. But we have a peaked roof, and the snow should slide off before it becomes a problem.

After dinner, they listened to Christmas carols on the stereo and unwrapped their presents. Laurie had friends who only opened presents on Christmas Day, but they had always opened their family presents for each other on Christmas Eve. In the morning, there would be gifts from Santa and then more gifts at her grandparents. Spreading it out over two days made the holiday seem to last longer.

“All right, you two. Time to get to bed so that Santa will come. Plus, we’ll need to get an early start to meet up with your uncle’s truck.”

“Ahhh,” Michael moaned, but he kissed their parents good night and went to bed without fussing. Laurie followed suit and jumped into her bed upstairs. She shivered as she waited for the bed clothes to warm up from her body heat, and she watched the snow falling onto the crabapple tree until she dropped into sleep.

Stepping through the snow drifts on the way to their church the next day was no easier than it was on Christmas Eve, but at least the sun was shining and there wasn’t any wind blowing snow into their faces.

Michael was being carried by their dad, and mom had on a backpack full of wrapped presents for her brother’s family and her parents.

Looking around, Laurie was amazed by how high the snow drifts reached up the sides of houses and doorways. Entire cars were buried in snow and trees were bent and weighed down by piles of snow on their limbs and crowns. Icicles hanging from gutters and eaves, gleamed and sparkled in the sunlight. While she looked at one house they passed, a particularly large one broke off and crashed down into the bushes below.

Aside from crashing icicles, everything was quiet except for the crunching of snow underneath their boots.

When they reached the church, they could see that a snowplow had been down the avenue, so it would be easier for their uncle’s truck to make it to them. Their dad had stamped down snow where the sidewalk was hidden, and they stood there and waited a while for their ride. Laurie’s toes were getting cold inside her boots, so she stamped her feet up and down to try and keep warm.

Michael said he wanted to make snowballs, but their dad kept ahold of him to keep him out of the snow.

“If I let you down, little guy, you’ll sink into the drifts, and we’ll never find you until spring.”

Michael giggled.

Finally, the truck appeared and slowed to a stop in front of the church. It was in the middle of the street, but there was no other traffic and nowhere for the truck to pull into the snow packed parking lot.

Laurie’s aunt got out of the truck cab’s passenger side and gestured for them to follow her to the back of the camper. She opened the camper door in the back and hugged each one of them before they clambered up into the back of the truck bed under the camper shell.

Laurie’s four cousins were inside amid a pile of blankets. They all situated themselves in the bed of the truck and then the truck began to bump along the ruts of slush and ice of the road. When they reached Colorado Boulevard, the road smoothed out a bit from the weight of other cars and trucks on the road.

At one point the truck stopped and they could hear uncle talking to someone. Then the door of the camper opened, and a stranger climbed in with them.

Laurie’s mother exclaimed, “Dr. Cummings!”

“Well, hello.”

“Were you out walking in this?” her dad asked.

“I’m just trying to get home from the hospital. Just another mile to go, but it’s nice to get the lift. It’s a slog trying to hike through this.”

After they dropped Dr. Cummings off, the truck turned off onto a side street and the going became slower, but Laurie was excited that they were almost to the house. She knew it had been trouble for everyone, but she would have missed being with her grandparents for Christmas.

All the kids tumbled out of the camper first and promptly got stuck in snow piled up at the side of the driveway. The adults followed and pulled them up onto the porch where Grandma was holding open the door.

Coats, hats, scarves and snow filled boots ended up in a giant pile by the door and the adults brought in packages of gifts and placed them under the Christmas tree that was covered in silver tinsel and handmade ornaments and lights.

Laurie could smell turkey, ham, potatoes and pie and the dining table was all set up to seat all twelve of them. Grandma was smiling and Grandpa was sitting in his chair with his grandchildren climbing onto his lap.

The world was still covered in snow and the cold night was ahead, but right now, inside this house, Laurie could see that this is what Christmas meant to her – to be with her family, warm and safe, and to anticipate having good things to eat, made with love, all together.

The End