My Muddy-Booted Santas by Janie DeVos

  
Christmas Eve in 2019 was supposed to be a rather low-key event: A couple of friends were coming for an early supper before going to the candlelight service at our church. In the years prior to that, I’ve had quite a few people over on the eve of that most wonderful day, but that year, there were just four of us, and, in some ways, I was a little relieved that it would be a far less stressful affair. At least I thought it would be.

The menu was an easy one: a pasta casserole, salad and bread, and our friends were bringing cheese cake for dessert. Instead of drinking the harder stuff before going to church, I had a hot orange and cranberry soft cider to enjoy, and the usual nuts and cheese nibbles to go with it. It was the middle of the afternoon and all was going as smoothly as a newly paved road, until I turned on the tap in my kitchen to start washing the veggies for the pasta casserole. Instead of there being a good rush of water, all I got was a pencil-thin stream. There was only one reason for it, and that reason wasn’t good at all: We were running out of water, and the panic set in.

Now, I knew we had plenty of water in our spring because we’d had the wettest December on record here in Western Carolina. But I also knew that might actually be causing the problem. In the past, when we’ve had too much water, it’s re-routed the flow of our spring and we had to run new pipes into it. But here it was, Christmas Eve at 2:00 in the afternoon, and the likelihood of getting anyone out to help us (no, we couldn’t fix it ourselves, we’re still too city-fied), was about as likely as watching Santa swoop down into our driveway. But, that’s about what happened: I was able to reach our plumber, who was willing to come out (I think he likes my dirty jokes and he’s become a friend over the years), and I also got hold of another friend who is our handyman guru around here on a weekly basis. Within an hour’s time, they both arrived, and fifteen minutes later my spring was merrily filling up our tank once again. The pipe leading into the tank had simply gotten clogged up with muck from all of the rain and snow melt. It was an easy-breezy fix – well, for them, anyway. Once they were satisfied that all was running perfectly, out of the woods they came, with shovels resting atop their shoulders, just like Santas carrying their sacks. I stood at the kitchen window watching them, and as they talked and laughed together, their middle-aged bellies shook like bowls full of jelly. “Yes, Virginia, there really is a Santa Claus…two, actually,” I said softly.

“Y’all like pecan pie?” I asked as they kicked off their muddy boots on the back porch. There was a unanimous confirmation that they did, so I put on a pot of coffee and cut two extra-large pieces of it for them.

As we sat down at the dining room table, I pushed aside the nicely set silver, china and faux poinsettia napkin rings, then, as they say in the mountains, “we visited”. In the background, in my adjoining family room, sounds could be heard from the movie, The Polar Express, airing on TV.

“Have you seen the movie?” I asked.

Our handyman friend, Jay, said that he had and how good it was.

“What about you, Jack?” I asked the plumber.

“Well, I started to,” he explained in his easy, slow southern drawl after swallowing a bite of pie. “It was on TV the other night but my twelve year old daughter said she’d seen it enough at school ‘cuz they show it every year before Christmas. So, we changed the channel. To tell ya the truth, I was kinda disappointed,” he smilingly admitted, looking a little embarrassed. “I was really enjoying it.”

“Hold on,” I said as I got up from the table and then hurried downstairs to our basement. A couple of minutes later, I returned with The Polar Express DVD in hand. Yes, I had it, along with Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and A Charlie Brown Christmas. Doesn’t everyone? Well, everyone except Jack.

“Merry Christmas!” I smiled as I laid the movie down on the table next to his now-empty pie plate.

“No kiddin’!” he laughed, picking it up and examining the cover with a smile that was as big as a kid’s on Christmas morning.

“It’s yours. Watch it to your heart’s content,” I replied.

Two hours later, our supper guests arrived and you’d have never known we were in panic mode just a short time before. The evening went off without a hitch, and we all had a wonderfully merry time.

As I lie in bed that night, I smiled thinking about ol’ Jack watching The Polar Express. Because he’s divorced and lives alone, I pictured him sitting there in his living room in an old recliner, in a pair of boxer shorts, with a frosty beer on the table next to him, along with a bag of something salty, smiling as the train’s conductor (Tom Hanks), sang about hot chocolate. And that one little thing – a thing which may seem so unimportant to so many people – brought me much joy and was one of the highlights of my Christmas this year.

All things considered, it’s never the presents that come wrapped in shiny bright paper that make my Christmases so magical. It’s always the most unexpected gifts. This year, it was those two Heaven-sent Santas, who arrived at the eleventh hour in muddied boots and with shovels in hand ready to help us. And to be able to give one a small present that helped him to enjoy Christmas like a kid again was one of the best gifts I received this year.

Wishing each of you a wonderful year ahead, and a kinder one, filled with big and small acts of goodness and love that help us to remember how much we truly need each other.

~*~

Janie DeVos lives with her husband and two Basset Hounds, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, and is presently working on a new series about train hopping during the Great Depression. She is also a regular blogger with the WordWranglers, where she contributes pieces on a wide range of subjects.

In turn-of-the-century Florida, a family comes of age, and a daughter finds her destiny entwined with a land that is as full of promise as it is danger.

There Are Places I Remember

In North Carolina earlier this week, writer Janie DeVos stood on the deck of her sister's log home and drew in a long, deep breath and absorbed the strength and beauty of "my mountains." She writes wonderful stories about the Blue Ridge, ones that make you feel what she feels and see what she sees. And, at the end of the day, her voice comes from that place she loves.

Spruce Pine, NC

On other writing trips, Nan Reinhardt and I have gone to Michigan. It's one of my favorite places in the world, but for Nan, it is the place. She loves  all the little beach towns that make themselves at home on its west coast and has learned their distinct personalities in the way natives do.

Grand Haven, MI

We are fortunate in this country, for many reasons--some of which are difficult to remember these days--but specifically for its individual places. And I have noticed in social media that even in the case of "where to go on vacation," there is a tendency toward divisiveness. Click bait for the "10 worst vacation spots in American" or "overrated tourist attractions" bounce around the internet. "Flyover country" is considered one large wheat field of no interest to anyone. Those articles are, like this one, opinion pieces, yet they are presented as absolute fact.

Having been to several of those 10 worst vacation spots and some of the overrated tourist attractions and having spent my entire life in flyover country, I call BS. 

Because we don't just look at places we love--we experience them. They activate all our senses, including the elusive common one, and fulfill needs we may not even know we have. They may not provide answers to painful questions, but they do provide an avenue for finding them. They don't have signs saying that "peace at heart can be found here," but sometimes it can; we just have to look and allow ourselves to feel.

I love a lot of places and am grateful for having been there and experiencing them--Johnny Cash songs in an Irish pub? You bet! At the end of the day, though, the one that holds my heart is available right outside my office window. It is in this "place I remember" that I find peace and joy and memories. 

Through the office window

Where are your places? I hope you share either here or on Facebook. Wherever they are, I wish you joy in them. 

Have a great week. Be nice to somebody.

Let's Talk... by Liz Flaherty

It is amazing the things that invite discussion, you know it? Tonight, sitting at a table with two other writers, we have tried to figure out what is making noise in the woods beyond the deck of the house where we're staying. So far, we still don't know what it is. 

This afternoon, one of the other writers yelled because something was on her toe. She didn't know what it was or what to do. It wasn't all that funny until she figured out it was cake icing. Now it's hilarious and it's up in the air whose book it will appear in first. How it got there to begin with? Well, that's up in the air, too, but I'm all about making things up.

Duane and I talk about things upon which we disagree. Because, you know, we're married. We talk about them, over them, around them, We raise our voices, we say let's just not talk about this anymore and sometimes we lapse into cranky and slightly childish silence. When we start the discussion again, we realize what we should have known in the first place--we're mostly in agreement; we just say so in different words.

A funny thing about discussion is the memory of it. Because the participants never remember it the same way. The discussion of a discussion can be as enlightening--not to mention horrifying--as the discussion itself. Only when it sinks to the level of, "No, you said...I distinctly remember. I didn't say anything" is it time to give over to talking about the weather. 

If you've discussed politics or religion and the language gets inflammatory, give it a rest. You can't un-call those names because no matter how often you say, "That's not what I meant," it's still what you said.

This morning, at this table full of laptops on this retreat in the mountains I'm sharing with writer friends, we've talked about being fixers and pleasers, about Facebook, about what kind of wives we were, and (incidentally) about the stories we're writing. We've talked about the books that most deeply affected us--Little Women; after all, I AM Jo March--about how long books have affected us and about books we haven't read and written yet. 

With discussion comes learning. Comes truth--although not always absolute, because subjectivity often rears its head. Comes gasping laughter and gut-wrenching grief. In Steel Magnolias, Truvy said, "I have a strict policy that nobody cries alone in my presence."

That is, I believe, what lies at the bottom of every discussion well. As long as minds and hearts stay open, talking about it will help most everything. (My husband doesn't agree with this, by the way.) But at the end of the back-and-forth meeting of opinion, you need to be able to share tears and laughter. 

It's something we're not all good at, isn't it? Maybe we should try harder. Have a great week. Talk to people. Be nice to somebody.

*** 

Commercial...don't forget Window Over the Sink, the book, is available from most online bookstores. Signed copies can also be found at Anita's Boutique and at Black Dog Coffee in Logansport. You can also order them from me at the following link. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/11XQqum2Ohak3MXMdDTGarilThRllp7y5XTiSf60bM0o/edit Thank you for your support, always! 

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