Silent Night
Snowflakes fluttered down like white feathers sparkling in the streetlights, lending a winter magic to the eyes of the handicapped child riding in the wooden sleigh pulled by his mother Mary, whose thin coat was better suited for warmer days. Four-year old Tommy loved the outdoors at this time of year – the decorations, the twinkling lights, dancing elves, air-blown Santa Clauses emerging from chimneys, prancing electric reindeer cavorting on snow-covered lawns all around the Pinewood neighbourhood at Christmas time. Walking on the snow, or worse, ice was difficult for Tommy with his one deformed foot, but riding in the sleigh, wrapped in a blanket, was great fun.
Mary, heartened that afternoon by the warm thought that the morrow would after all be a Merry Christmas for Tommy, pulled the old sleigh up the street towards the small draughty rented house on Main Street West now decorated with a home-made wreath on the door. She was encouraged by the telephone call that afternoon telling her that tomorrow, when her son opens the gift from the Santa Fund, he will laugh and smile. She can tell him that yes, there is a Santa Claus. No, Santa is not his father, the man who ran from his responsibilities when he saw his club-footed son. Santa is the human spirit. Mary instinctively looked up and Tommy laughing in glee, pointed to the North Star, asking if that was the Star of Bethlehem, remembering the stories she had been reading to him that week. Then from the east flashed a meteor; it was a certain sign to Mary that the operation promised by the Service Club in the spring will help her son to walk.
Away in a Manger
Joe, the night clerk at the hotel on McKeown, hummed the familiar carol refrain to himself as he checked-in the family of four whose older car had blown a radiator hose on their way north to New Liskeard to celebrate Christmas with her family. All the garages were closed for the holidays; however, Joe dialled his uncle Bob who worked at the service station on Algonquin Avenue. Bob assured him that he would repair the car on Christmas morning so the young pregnant mother could reach her parent’s home for Christmas dinner.
From the look of their clothes, Joe knew they did not have much money. He saw the dismay in the faces of the young couple when he said the only room available at the Inn was the Executive Suite and it cost three hundred and ninety dollars for a night – any night, but especially on a holiday like today - Christmas Eve.
It was the night when he, Joe, wanted to be home to read The Christmas Carol to his kids, especially the part where Joe used the voice of the ghost of Christmas Past. However, his children understood that he must work on this holiest of nights in case someone, especially a pregnant mom, was looking for a room at the Inn. Like Mary and Joseph in the Bible story. So, Joe over-rode the room rate and typed in ‘Complimentary’ because he knew the manager’s secret password and because it was Christmas, after all. “Merry Christmas”, he said as he handed the couple their Christmas card - a free room key. “The Complimentary breakfast starts at 7 a.m. My uncle Bob will meet you at the garage at 8:00. Have a safe trip.”
Santa Claus is Coming to Town
Sam sighed as he pulled off the fake whiskers. It was December 23, his last shift as the Northgate Mall Santa, a job he hoped he would never have to do again. As he scrubbed the rouge from his cheeks, he amended his thought. He would do it if he had to, like this year, because he was suddenly unemployed right before Christmas – a downturn in the mining sector – again.
The pay for playing Santa was good. It was the kids. Well, most of the kids. Did they have any idea of what they were demanding? Not asking, demanding? A five-year-old wanting a cell phone with unlimited minutes. Where did she get that idea? An electric-powered bicycle? Did he know what those things cost? And an order not to bring a snowsuit like he did last year? What his four kids wouldn’t do for some new snowsuits, mitts and winter boots.
Then there were the parents, like the one who insisted that her terrified two-year-old had to sit on the strange man’s knee for a photo – the kid had no idea who or what Santa was - no wonder the kid peed on his leg. Or the guy who said, loudly to his six-year-old son, see I told you he was a fake. If he knew Sam was a fake, why did he pull on his beard? However, Sam smiled as he folded the red suit and placed it in the plastic bag for next year’s Santa. There was that one little girl his first day on the job who sat on his knee and said thanks for the doll he brought her last year and no, she didn’t need anything this year. She only wanted to wish him a Merry Christmas.
Sam didn’t see the manager come into the locker room so he was startled when the man patted his shoulder and said, “Sam, I looked at your file. We have an opening in Shipping and Receiving – you can start the day after New Year. Merry Christmas, Santa.”
Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire
The four firefighters from Station 3, now sitting in the cab of Pumper No #1, were singing as they headed back to the station on McKeown Avenue on Christmas Eve. For once they could joke about a house fire - the damage had been limited to the phoney Christmas tree and the expensive Berber rug under the tree. The older man had the fire out by the time they got to the house up on Airport Hill. The elderly gentleman - who had a little too much liquid cheer and not enough sense to know that you should not try to roast chestnuts in an open fireplace - where the exploding fiery shells would land on the nearby plastic tree, triggering the resulting blaze which caused his wife to call 911.
He was trying to roast chestnuts because he was lonely and his kids were not coming home for Christmas again this year. The woman of the house, a bit of a Grinch, the firefighters agreed, was quite upset that Burt and Mark had rushed inside with boots on, boots not quite cleaned of soot from the chimney fire half an hour before. Santa would not be coming down that particular chimney tonight but using the front door like everyone else.
The stains on her posh white rug were almost as dark as the looks she gave her husband when he pulled out his fat wallet and donated five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills to the Fire Station Toy Fund. Another job well done, they were singing . . . “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose” as pumper #1 rolled down Airport hill.
Jingle Bells
Frances pulled her collar up and held it tight against the swirling winds that always blew through the wind tunnel of the two tall buildings on Fraser Street. Even though it was snowing again, Main Street had been crowded with Christmas shoppers grabbing a few minutes of shopping after five o’clock and he was there again, in front of the LCBO. The man was ringing the damn bells jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle luring people to the kettle. Frances had nothing personal against the Salvation Army but she thought they had stepped over the line by having a man in a wheelchair soliciting for coins and bills at the liquor store before Christmas.
It was the third year he had been there and last year she wrote to the Sally Ann people expressing her disgust at their pathetic commercialism that played upon people’s sympathy at Christmas time.
Just as the green traffic light beckoned her to cross Worthington Street, she saw a Salvation officer in his black uniform arrive to talk to the man in the wheelchair. He was relieving the man who wheeled himself across the street to Twiggs and into the warmth of the coffee shop. Frances retraced her steps through the ankle-high snow to give the Sally Ann officer a piece of her mind about their crass commercialism.
Ten minutes later Frances was standing beside the kettle when the man in the wheelchair returned to take up his jingling bells. She bent over and gave the surprised man a hug; stuffed two twenty-dollar bills into the kettle and with tears in her eyes, wished him a Merry Christmas. What else could she do for a young veteran who lost both legs to an IED in Afghanistan on Christmas Day seven years ago?
