’Twas the Day before Christmas
Wednesday, December 24, 2008

AT TEN A.M., ETHEL WAS SITTING IN HER LIVING ROOM IN HER lavender chenille robe, sipping eggnog and opening her last batch of Christmas cards, grumbling out loud to her two cats. When she read the card from one of her nieces, she said, “Damn it, I don’t want anybody donating money in my name to some charity. I want a present, and look at this. Thirty-seven Christmas cards and not one says, ‘Merry Christmas.’ It’s all ‘Have a Joyous Season,’ ‘Happy Holidays,’ or some such nonsense. It’s Christmas, for God’s sake! Well, you can thank the goddamn ACLU for that,” she added as she continued throwing the cards away, one after another, in the trash can beside her, until she opened one from a friend in her handbell choir that actually had “Merry Christmas” on it. “Well, finally,” she said, and she stood up and placed it on the mantel with the others. A couple of minutes later, she got up and put her new welcome mat out at the front door:

PEOPLE BRINGING TIDINGS OF JOY,
KINDLY STEP BEHIND THOSE BEARING PRESENTS.

Across town, Maggie was getting ready to go to work. Although December was known as the “dead as a doornail” month for real estate, she had decided to hold the house open through the holidays. She had hired a crew to come and hang lights, and she’d had all the hedges trimmed neat and clean. And a week ago, she had hung a lovely evergreen Christmas wreath with a big red bow on the door. She’d placed little sprigs of holly on all the fireplace mantels and around the mirrors in the entrance hall and had Christmas music playing all through the house. Every day, after she lit a big roaring fire in the living room fireplace, she opened all the curtains upstairs and downstairs, and then she and the house stood ready, waiting in anticipation, just hoping for the right person to come in and see how wonderful it was. But day after day, almost no one came. Poor Crestview. It tried to be bright and cheery all day, and each night, Maggie could almost feel its disappointment as she closed the curtains and turned off the lights. It was the same today. She had suspected that the day before Christmas would not be very good for an open house, but she had hoped.

She had just finished closing the last curtain and was about to turn off the hall lights when her phone rang. It was Brenda.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come over here and be with us tonight? Robbie said she’ll come pick you up and take you home.”

“Oh, honey, that’s so sweet, but really, I just want to stay home by myself tonight.”

It was her last Christmas Eve on earth, and for once, instead of making up excuses, she had actually told the truth. It was a start. Too late, of course. But as usual, that night, she started to worry that she had hurt Brenda and Robbie’s feelings. Lord, it never ended. If you did tell the truth or if you didn’t, there were always consequences. Human interaction was difficult at best.