Summary: This story was written for the 2016 Advent Collection. The whole family gets into the spirit of the Advent season.
Rating: G (2,130 words)
The Strangest of Christmases (by JoaniePaiute)
As always on Christmas Day, Joe woke long before daylight. He was eighteen now, a grown man (at least in his own eyes), but still a kid when it came to Christmas. The others hid their excitement a little better, but when Joe slammed open his bedroom door, Hoss just happened to open his own door before Joe could yell, “Merry Christmas!” at the top of his lungs. And when Ben and Adam appeared, rumpled and trying to appear grumpy, they both had a tell-tale glint of humor in their sleep-squinted eyes.
Joe took the stairs three at a time, hollering for Hop Sing as he went. The other three followed more sedately, and a moment later Ben, Adam, and Hoss were seated in the great room. Hop Sing put a new log on last night’s stoked embers and knelt to blow on them, while Joe turned to the presents under the tree. He paused and took a step back.
“Whoa,” he said. “Who put all these here?”
Everyone stared. There were at least twice as many gifts as there’d been the night before, all wrapped in glittering paper of red, silver, green, and gold and tied with elaborate bows. Big presents, little ones, square and round and cylindrical ones.
“Where did those come from?” Ben demanded.
“Not from me,” Hoss said. Adam and Hop Sing both shook their heads.
“Well, somebody put them there,” Joe protested. He picked one up and read from the tag, “To Hoss and Adam, from DJK.” He frowned from one brother to the other. “Who’s DJK?”
“Heck if I know,” Hoss said, reaching for the package. “Gimme that, little brother.” Adam leaned toward Hoss to watch him open it. Gold paper fell to the floor as Hoss lifted out a doll of some kind, dressed all in brown and wearing a pointed hat.
“A barn elf!” Adam cried.
Hoss grinned. “It sure is!” he said, and gave a delighted laugh. “How did this DJK person know?”
Joe shrugged, grinning too. “Let’s see what else is here,” he said, snatching up a flat box wrapped in red. “This one’s for all of us, from…” He looked at the tag. “From Sierra Girl.” He lifted his eyebrows. “That sounds interesting.”
“Stop drooling and hand it over,” Adam ordered, taking the box. He lifted the lid and looked puzzled.
“Well?” Ben prompted. “What is it?”
Adam held up a gingerbread man with raisins for eyes. He handed it to Ben, then gave each of the others another one. Joe stared at his.
“I remember this!” he exclaimed. “I made it that Christmas Adam was so late getting home!”
“Oh, come one, Little Joe,” Hoss said, taking a bite of his. With his mouth full, he added, “These aren’t the same cookies. They just look like them.”
“No,” Joe insisted. “These are the same ones.” He hesitated. “I know. I just know.”
Hop Sing was standing by the fireplace, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Next package, Joe!” he demanded.
The gifts that followed were every bit as strange as the first two, and the names on the tags just as mysterious. Someone named Betty had given them a popcorn strand and a candle set in a tin holder, along with, of all things, a foot-long snakeskin. They all gaped at this, and then Adam turned bright red. “The tree,” he said simply.
Hoss burst out laughing. “And Mrs. Woods!” Joe hooted, and Ben and Hop Sing smiled.
More gifts: a funny wooden squirrel on a sled from Sunrider, with the word “Fraueninsel” carved on the back. A porcelain cherub, exactly like the ones on the music box that had belonged to Adam’s mother, from Patina. A cylindrical cake from Puchi Ann, at which Hop Sing shouted, “A wood cake!” A shower of dainty, lacy paper stars from Faust.
Adam picked up a pale blue star, holding it reverently between his thumb and forefinger. “I remember these,” he said softly. “No, that’s not right. I don’t exactly remember them…but I know them.” A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were far away.
Ben had just unwrapped a long woolen sock. “Strange,” he said slowly. “I know this sock. It belongs to a boy with…” He frowned. “Red hair.” He glanced at the tag. “It’s from someone named Cheaux. But what does it mean?”
“I think it’s connected to this, Pa,” Adam said, showing him a musical score. “It’s from an S. K. Lamb.” Softly, in his steady baritone, he sang the first line of what was written there: “Hark, the herald angels sing,” and Ben shuddered.
“What’s wrong, Pa?” Hoss asked.
“Nothing,” Ben said, but he sounded uncertain. Taking the music sheet from Adam, he read through it and muttered, “I’ve heard this song a hundred times—you sing it every year, Adam—but this is different somehow.”
“I know, Pa,” Adam said. “When I sang that line just now, I felt like something terrible had happened—or will happen. But I felt something else, too.” He considered. “Hope?”
“Continuity,” Ben said firmly, and Adam nodded.
They continued opening presents. There was a crinkly paper angel from Belle, holding a small brass trumpet with colorful streamers hanging from it. When Hop Sing saw it, he sang in a remarkably clear tenor, “Angels watching, e’er around thee,” and Adam chimed in, harmonizing, “All through the night.”
The package from Inca held a set of carved crèche pieces, including a perfect baby in perfect swaddling clothes. Ben turned the baby over in his hands, scrutinizing it.
“I thought these had been lost,” he said wonderingly.
“These, too,” Adam said, showing him a pair of child-sized, hand-knit mittens. “I’m sure they’re the ones Mama—Inger—made for me. But the tag says they’re from Bluewind Farm. Do you know of a place called that, Pa?” Ben shook his head.
From Sybille came a worn cast-iron lantern that made Ben catch his breath and breathe the word, “Home.” From Juanita a silvery feather that caused Joe to blink rapidly and look away. From Forever Free there was a bag of white powder that Adam sifted through his fingers, muttering, “Salt? No, it’s…but that can’t be.”
Hoss reached over and touched the powdery stuff. He grinned. “But it is, brother. It’s snow. And before you ask, no, I don’t know why it don’t melt.”
Suddenly Joe gave a choked sob, and they all turned toward him. He was holding a pair of knitting needles in one hand and a dried starflower in the other.
“Joseph?” Ben said. “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know,” Joe whispered, confusion and pain in his eyes. “Like Adam said about those paper stars, I don’t remember these things. But I know them.”
“Who are they from?” Adam asked.
Joe checked the tags on the knitting needles. “J.F. Clover?” he read tentatively, then corrected himself, “No, I think it’s J.F.C. Lover.” Smiling shakily, he admitted, “Well, I do like that.” Reading the other tag, he said, “And the starflower is from Just a Fan.” Carefully he set them on the coffee table. “I don’t understand any of this!” he burst out. “These make me feel sad and scared, but, well, sort of comforted, too. Does that make any sense at all?”
“Yes,” Ben said quietly. He was holding what looked like an ordinary walking stick. “This is from Dance Diva, and it makes me feel the same way: both sad and comforted.” Hefting the stick as if to test its weight, he said, “I kept this for three days after Inger died, and then I broke it into pieces and threw it in the fire. I’m sure of it.”
“But that’s—” Joe started, and Adam, Hoss, and Hop Sing chimed in to finish, “Impossible.”
Ben nodded. “Yes. But here it is.”
Only a few packages remained. Joe handed them out, keeping a small one wrapped in green paper for himself. It contained a sleigh bell, and when he shook it, they all seemed to hear children singing faintly behind its cheerful jingle. Joe looked at the tag. “From T-S-T-I,” he spelled out. “Initials, I guess.”
“But four of ’em?” Hoss asked. Joe just shrugged, and Hoss turned to the gift he held.
“From some lady named Michele,” he said, and poured a bagful of wooden puzzle pieces on the table. “I never liked these things much,” he said. “Adam, you can put this together.”
“Later,” Adam said, unrolling a scroll of parchment he’d unwrapped. He read aloud, “From Mumu: ‘A very merry Christmas, and a happy New Year. Let’s hope it’s a good one, without any fear.’” His smile was a grim one. “I’ll drink to that,” he said, and no one chuckled.
Hop Sing and Ben opened the last two packages at the same time. Hop Sing held up a framed painting—actually three paintings on one panel—of Ben with each of his three wives, and the three sons interspersed between. It was signed in the lower right corner with the name Conny. A comfortable silence fell as they all gazed at it. There were no regrets in that silence, only warmth and good memories. Then Ben held up the final gift, from someone named Indiana.
It was a daguerreotype, large enough to plainly show the four Cartwright men, Hop Sing, three attractive women (one of them obviously with child), two little girls, and a toddler boy. Hoss held a baby in his arms. And here was another “impossible” thing: Hoss looked older. He had slightly less hair, a slightly larger girth, and his proud smile showed a definite set of laugh lines. The others looked older, too: Hop Sing’s face was a veritable road map, and Ben’s hair was a gleaming white patch on the black-and-white daguerreotype. Adam, wearing a long black coat with a fur collar, was a handsome middle-aged man. And Joe seemed taller somehow, and his hair was no longer completely dark. It was, however, quite shaggy.
“Joseph, you need a haircut,” Ben scolded, and they all laughed.
Adam leaned toward the coffee table to begin putting the jigsaw puzzle together. He examined a piece that contained a green eye framed by thick lashes. “Something tells me,” he mused, looking for a connecting piece, “this eyeball belongs to you, Little Joe.”
Joe picked up a piece showing a black hat brim below a silver-studded band. “Yours, older brother?” he guessed.
Hop Sing stretched. “Everything opened?” he asked. “No, still presents there from last night.” He was right: under the tree remained the gifts each Cartwright and Hop Sing had wrapped for each other.
Ben shook his head. “I think we’ve opened enough for now,” he said, nodding toward the window. The sky glowed pink and yellow, throwing beams of light onto the breakfast table. Hop Sing had set their places the night before, and he’d undoubtedly been awake even before Joe so he could brew coffee and put the biscuits in the oven. As a matter of fact, they all suddenly smelled those biscuits, and Hop Sing gave a little shriek as he dashed toward the kitchen. Smiling, Ben looked around at his sons.
“Let’s eat breakfast,” he said, “and then get started on the day’s work. The rest of the presents will wait until later.”
“After the Christmas feast?” Hoss asked eagerly.
“Yes, Hoss, after the feast,” Ben agreed. Roasted goose surrounded with potatoes and cranberries, more biscuits, and Hop Sing’s best plum pudding soaked in brandy and blazing with an eerie blue light…yes, the rest of the presents could wait until after that.
As they all started toward the table, Adam held back, touching his father’s sleeve to get his attention. Ben looked at him, waiting. Finally Adam spoke. “Where did these come from?” He picked up a tag, rereading the name on it. “Who are these people? And how did they know…” He scowled. “…certain things?”
Ben shook his head. “We’ll probably never figure that out,” he said. He looked toward the window at the sunrise, but seemingly beyond it. “I don’t know who they are,” he said softly, “but I feel I know them.”
Adam frowned at the tag, as if it were concealing its secret just to annoy him. Then his face relaxed. “Me, too,” he said. “I don’t know them, but I know them. And you know what else?”
“What?”
“I like them.”
“Yes.” Smiling broadly, Ben gripped his eldest son’s shoulder for a second. Then they followed Hoss and Joe to the table, where Hop Sing was waiting (most impatiently) with the coffeepot.
To everyone at Bonanza Brand: Merry Christmas and a peaceful, prosperous New Year.
