Let it Be Christmas (Helen)

“…and, since one of the counselors is in the hospital having a baby and the other has three little kids, and we don’t have any yet, I’m working Christmas Day, but my shift begins at midnight, so there’s no way we’ll make it, Moms, not even for Christmas Eve,” Helen Belden sighed and sank down on the couch as she listened to her oldest son.

            “I understand, Brian.  We’ll miss you very much.  Have you told the Lynches?”

            “Actually, Di’s talking to her mom on her cell phone right now.  We’ll plan on coming down for New Year’s instead – as long as there’s decent weather.  And next year for sure we’ll be home for Christmas – all four of us!”

            Helen smiled through her disappointment to hear the elation in her eldest’s voice as he referred to the twins he and his wife were expecting in June.  After eight years of marriage and trying everything possible to have a child, two years ago they’d been told it wouldn’t be possible to ever have a children.   Earlier this month they’d received an early Christmas miracle when Di’s horrible stomach flu had finally been properly diagnosed and they discovered that not only was Diana pregnant, she was expecting twins in the spring.

            After a few more minutes of small talk and reassurances that she understood and so would his father, Helen hung up the phone.  She continued to sit on the couch a while longer, stroking the soft black back of Cinders, the cat Bobby had rescued years ago when he’d worked at the animal clinic in White Plains with Honey.  Bobby, now married and a father, had decided that the farm life was better for Cinders than the big city.

            “Well, cat, hope you still like ham, because there’s going to be lots.”  Helen almost felt like crying.  A week ago they’d been planning on a full house for Christmas.  Brian and Di were coming, though they had planned at staying at her parents’ home a mile or so away.  Mart, Linnie and their three children were flying out from California.  Trixie, Jim and their two little boys lived just up the hill, but would be in and out daily.  Bobby, his wife Gaye and their little boy had been coming to stay with them.  Honey and Dan would’ve been up at Manor House with their little ones and Crabapple Farm would be ringing with the laughter and tears of children once more.  The stretchy walls that Helen had so often talked about were ready to stretch to the upmost. 

            First Bobby had called saying they wouldn’t be making it.  Gaye’s Aunt Della had slipped and fallen on an icy Chicago sidewalk and had broken her arm and a hip.  Now in her 70s, and Gaye being her only family, they couldn’t leave her alone. 

            Next, it was Mart calling.  It didn’t appear that he and Linnie and their children would be making it across the country after all.  Usually the school that Jim owned and Mart ran in the mountains of Northern California was closed in the winter.    However, improvements that Mart and Jim had made on the school buildings and a major overhaul on the road allowed them to keep it open through the winter months with a smaller number of students.  Most of the children that came had relatives where they went for the holidays, but this year there was a family of three boys and a girl who had nowhere to go – the grandparents that were their guardians were both in the hospital for different reasons.  With no other family to take them, there was no option but to remain at school.  Mart hated to have any of his employees give up their planned vacation with their families, so cancelled his own family’s trip to New York. 

            Helen knew she shouldn’t be selfish and should be proud of her children and how they’d been raised – always willing to help those in need.  But now, with Brian’s call and his need to go to work at the drug rehab center for teens where he works was just the last straw.  She was needy, darn it all, come visit her!  She needed a grandkid fix.

            Trixie and Jim had called a half hour before Brian to let her know that they wouldn’t be back from their trip to Colorado with the Wheelers by Christmas due to mechanical problems with the Wheeler jet.  Which meant Honey and Dan wouldn’t be coming either.  They’d all gone together to Colorado for the funeral of Honey’s cousin, Ben.  He’d never gained control over his alcoholism, which had ended his marriage to Diana a decade before, and driving under the influence in a snowstorm had been a deadly combination for the still young man.

            Dumping Cinders unceremoniously to the floor, Helen wandered to the kitchen.  Looking around she saw all the baking supplies she’d gotten out to mix up a triple batch of her sugar cookie dough to be ready for the ten adult “children” and 8 little children who were to have arrived the next day.  Sadness engulfed her as she returned eggs, milk and butter to the refrigerator.  Every year since the Christmas of 1974, when Brian had sat in his little seat on the table at two months old and watched with his, even then, serious dark eyes, she and Peter had made sugar cookies with their children, children’s friends and now grandchildren.  She had a whole scrapbook just of pictures of cookie time from the past 36 years.  Little Grace Noelle, Mart and Linnie’s oldest, was just 2 days old for her first cookie time five years before.  For the first time in 36 years there would be no children of any age in their home for Christmas.

            Now, with tears streaming down her face, Helen walked blindly through the living room, barely noticing the Nativity that she so loved.  It had been carved by her great-grandfather almost a century before.  Years of children playing with it had done nothing to harm it, only smoothing the wood with the most precious of varnish – love of tiny hands.  If you looked closely, you could see that love emanating from the face of each piece. 

            She walked up the stairs and felt more tears rise as she looked into Trixie’s old room.   On the bunk beds and twin bed were three matching quilts that her mother-in-law had lovingly stitched for her three sons so many years before.  They were to have warmed five year old Grace and her almost three year old brother, Isaac and his twin, Lydia.

            Turning into the room she and Peter had shared for 30 plus years, she plopped down on their bed and stared at the 11x14 picture of her beloved family that hung on the wall above her dresser.  It had been taken at Thanksgiving the year before when all of her children and grandchildren had been home.  Her two youngest grandsons, born just weeks apart, were only a few months old.  By this time next year they’d need a new one.  In addition to Brian and Diana’s twins, Trixie and Jim were expecting their third child in June.  This, is not helping she admonished herself.  Deciding that a walk is what she needed, Helen grabbed her Ipod, a gift from all of her children last Christmas, and headed back downstairs for her coat and boots.  Moments later, walking through the crisp December air, breathing deeply, she turned up her Ipod and started her Christmas music mix.  Her stress level lowered and her heart felt a little lighter as her favorite Alan Jackson song began,    

“Let it be Christmas everywhere, in the hearts of all people both near and afar,”

Yes, that was her family this year, the afar especially… 

            “Feel the love of the season wherever you are,”

Well, I should feel grateful that we can be in touch so easily these days…

            “Small country roads lined with green mistletoe,”  yes, she could see mistletoe in these old oaks along the path…Mart and Linnie could experience the same in their small mountain community in Northern California, as could Brian and Diana up near Albany. 

            “Big city streets where a thousand lights glow,” that was Bobby and Gaye in Chicago and this year, Jim and Trixie in Denver.

            Feeling much calmer and more at peace, Helen entered her home half an hour later.  After leaving her outdoor clothing on the back porch, she went into the entry way to check the answering machine.  Two messages.  Well, it couldn’t be anyone else cancelling for Christmas, she thought wryly.  One was from Peter.  Brian had called him as well, saying he was worried that he’d upset his mother.  Peter told her to not be sad…he’d try and make it up to her.  The first smile in a few hours crossed her face as she thought of how Peter could make it up to her.  Then second call brought a smile to her heart as well as her face.  Chaya, Andrew’s daughter that had lived with her and Peter for several years after her mother’s death, held a very special place in their home.

            “Aunt Moms,” the message began, “I know it’s really late to be calling and asking for a place to come for Christmas, but do you have any room for a couple more?  I didn’t realize until this morning that Dad was in an anti-holiday funk again.  So I called and got us two tickets to New York City for tomorrow morning.  Then I told him…he wasn’t thrilled because they’re non-refundable and I used his credit card…but I think he figured I was serious since I did that.  We’ll catch the train from the City and should be in Sleepyside around lunch time.  Call Dad’s cell when you get a chance, I have it so it’ll get answered.  We’re heading out from the lodge now.”

            Of course there was room for two more at Christmas…the stretchy walls could always fit in a few more.  Even if all of the others were coming, there would’ve still be room for two more.  Poor Chaya.  Andrew had been a changed man when he married her mother – changed for the best.  After her death he’d come to Sleepyside and left his toddler daughter with his brother’s family.  It took years, and Mart and Linnie’s hard work, to get him to realize what he was missing out on by not having his daughter in his life.  He still got his “funks” as Chaya called them.  So mature for her thirteen years, it still was hard on the little girl. 

            As she listened to the ringing of Andrew’s cell phone, she started to pull milk, eggs and butter from the refrigerator.  She’d better get going and get those sugar cookies mixed up.  Chaya loved making sugar cookies with her.  And who said they had to be all done at Christmas time?  She could mix up another batch or three for New Years.  Trixie and her family would be back at their home up the hill and Honey and Dan and their children would come for a visit.  Brian and Di would be down and who knew – maybe Aunt Della would be better and Bobby, Gaye and Robbie would be able to make it too.  Helen flipped on the radio as Chaya answered the phone,

            “Chaya, Aunt Moms here.  Of course we’ve got room for two more for Christmas!  What a silly question.  This is your home, too, you know!  We’ll get that dad of yours out of his funk.  Most of your cousins won’t be here until New Years, but I’ll catch you up on all of that later.  Call me when you are almost to Sleepyside and I’ll be waiting at the station for you.  Sweetie, you can’t imagine how glad I am that you are coming for Christmas!”

            From the radio drifted the song that had so changed her perspective a short time before,

“Let it be Christmas everywhere
Let heavenly music fill the air
Let every heart sing let every bell ring
The story of hope and joy and peace
And let it be Christmas everywhere
Let heavenly music fill the air
Let anger and fear and hate disappear
Let there be love that lasts through the year
And let it be Christmas
Christmas everywhere”

I think I even included all the elements from all the past years’ Holiday GWPs…in a roundabout way.  Merry Christmas!!

All characters are used without permission…Alan Jackson’s song is also quoted without permission.  Lots of references to stories that I’ve had plotted out for close to a decade now, but have yet to get written.  Merry Christmas…I think this is my first fan fic in about 4 years!  12-20-08
1-3-20 - okay now I can say stories plotted out for close to TWO decades now.