A 2003 Christmas letter to Grandma ~ December 24, 2003

David Heiller

Dear Grandma:

Another year has gone by already. It seems like I just wrote to you, yet it was last Christmas. Is time flying because so much has changed?

I know you are keeping an eye on us, but I still want to say a few things.

In a way it doesn’t seem like Christmas. No trip to the woods to cut down the tree. Even the woods have changed. Our balsams and spruce from up north have been replaced by good old oak and hickory.

Christmas cheer and Christmas hugs.

No house, no halls that Cindy can deck with her Christmas flair and fervor. She made that old farm house sparkle. I agree with Ben Logan—Santa Claus is a woman, at least in our house.

No Noah. He has to work. This will be our first Christmas without him. It’s hard on us, and probably on him, although he won’t admit that. I remember my first Christmas away from home, in Morocco in 1977, I walked down the road under a full moon in shorts and a T-shirt, surrounded by sand. In a way I felt closer to the first Christmas 2000 years ago. It hadn’t happened that many miles to the east of where I was walking, and maybe on a night like that.

But I was homesick! No familiar faces, no big family get-togethers, no chocolate drop cookies by you, or stories of Christmas in Nebraska, eating a big naval orange.

So the experience was a good one—new insights on Christmas and on me. That’s what growing up is all about. It will probably be the same for Noah.

I guess those new insights are still happening. We’re not in our own home yet, not getting together with our old friends. A new chapter is starting. We are keeping that in mind. And we are enjoying our time living above your favorite daughter—and my favorite mom.

David loved doing things for older folks.
Grandma Schnick and Grandma Heiller
 were his inspiration. He and Malika
preformed together many times with this in mind.

Christmas songs are helping me the most this year. The button box is sitting on the dresser, and it gets played almost every day, mostly old favorites like Jolly Old St. Nicholas, but a new one too that I’ve almost got down, Star of the East. It’s new for me at least, but not to everybody, including Bertha Heiller, who wants to hear it. Malika and I plan to accommodate her wishes.

Jill Hahn at the Argus asked Susie Frank and me the other day what our favorite Christmas songs were. What a hard question! Impossible, really. But it got me to thinking. Susie said Silent Night, and Jill came in with the same. I had to answer Away in the Manger. But there really isn’t one answer to that question.

It made me think about when I was stranded in the mountains back in November of 1973. As I lay in my little tent, surrounded by deep snow, all the Christmas songs of my youth came back. Every time I thought I had sung them all, a new one would pop into my head. They gave me joy and strength. I know they helped me survive.

I don’t have to worry about that anymore, at least not in the physical sense. But they still give my life meaning. Some things will always be with a person.

Like you, Grandma. It’s been 14 years since you left us, but you are still here, and, like a good Christmas carol, still in our hearts.

Merry Christmas.

David

1999 Christmas letter to Grandma ~ December 30, 1999

David Heiller

Dear Grandma:

We came to the stop sign by Banning Junction. My window was frosted over. Cindy couldn’t see the on-coming traffic. I pushed the button and down came the window, all the way down. Cindy has asked me not to lower it all the way down, but I forgot.

The window hasn’t been working all the time lately. It sometimes gets stuck in the open position. I have to open and close the door. Then it works again.

Guess what happened last week? When I pushed the button to make the window go up, it wouldn’t budge. I opened and closed the door, and it still wouldn’t go up.

It was 16 degrees below zero outside. The window was all the way open.

So we drove the last four miles into Askov going 55 miles an hour, which created a wind-chill in the car of 82 degrees below zero.

I put my coat, gloves, and hat back on, but it was still a chilly ride. Good old Sebald Motor Sales fixed it that day.

I blame this little window incident on Christmas, Grandma, because it’s easy to get distracted at Christmas time and put off doing the normal things like fixing broken car windows, or writing Christmas newspaper columns on time.

I don’t know if this was true for you, but there’s a myth about Christmas to me, that it is a peaceful time, like the songs imply.

But it isn’t that way. There is too much to do. The season is more stressful than I like to think about. It’s a time of car windows that won’t close.

Yet there is much to celebrate in the midst of the chaos, as the cartoon For Better or For Worse illustrates. The season hold’s more than its share of joy.

I can still eat your chocolate Christmas cookies. Cindy asked me last week, “What’s your favorite Christmas cookie?” and it didn’t take me long to answer, “Grandma’s chocolate cookies.” So she made them for me because she loves me as much as Scott Domogalla loves Julie.

The kids are easy to appreciate too. Noah complained that there were no presents under the tree for him to poke and prod. He can find the funniest things to complain about. He may be 16-1/2 years old, but there’s a lot of little kid in him. I knew exactly what he was saying. We both laughed about it. I brought a couple gifts home for him to man-handle before Christmas.

Noah, his cousins, and Uncle Randy enjoying tree-time.

Mollie sang at two church services on Christmas Eve and that was nothing to complain about either. She asked me if I would accom­pany her, which I answered as quickly as I did Cindy’s question about your cookies. Yes! I hope her singing never stops.

Is there anything better about Christmas than the songs we sing? Yes, some of them paint Norman Rockwell pictures. But they still hold a lot of love and hope.

Christmas gives me a chance to think about you too, and the good old days. Having you upstairs, playing cribbage, listening to your stories. I find comfort in the past, even though you, no doubt, had your share of stress.

How many times did you tell me about the Christmas when you were a little girl in Nebraska and you got an orange for Christmas, and how good that orange tasted? Not enough times, Grandma, not enough. I can still taste it.

You taught me to be thankful for a lot of things. Thanks for that, Grandma. I hope all is well with you and your old friends Up There.

Love, David

P.S. Is there going to be a Y2K problem in Heaven?

Keeping faith in Santa ~ December 28, 1989

David Heiller

Santa Claus came to our house on Sunday night, enroute to the homes of all good children. He left Shark Bites and oranges, Teddy Grahams and handkerchiefs, socks and scarves, and a book on the Minnesota Twins. I always knew Santa was a Twins fan.

Oh yes, he left toys too. A moose and elephant for Noah, and magic wand, crown, and cape for Princess Mollie.

Children have abiding faith in Santa Claus but on Christmas Eve, it did seem to falter a bit. We were sleeping downstairs on the hide-bed, with company upstairs. I put a log in the woodstove at about 2 a.m., the wood banging into the fire box with a thud. Noah must have heard that. He came padding down the steps and crawled into bed, pretending to nestle in. But soon I felt him move, and I cracked an eye to see him on his elbows, looking at the packages under the dark tree. New packages, ones he hadn’t seen there before. He looked wide-eyed at the wall where the stockings had been hung by the woodstove with care. No socks! His eyes ran to the kitchen table, where he spotted the now-bulging socks. He smiled and started to get up, heading in that direction.

Noah and Malika, Christmas 1989.

“Up to bed,” I said. He padded back upstairs, and didn’t make another sound.

Mollie followed an hour and a half later. Kids must have the same Christmas Eve instincts: insomnia and doubt followed by born-again faith and sweet dreams of Santa. Her routine echoed Noah’s, She faked a snuggle, then rose up to case the joint out, like a thief in the night, eyes running over all the goods. She tossed and turned between Cindy and me until I finally carried her back to her bed. She fell instantly asleep.

All doubt had left the next morning. The kids KNEW Santa had made his appointed rounds. When Noah was opening his big box, Cindy asked him what was in it. “A moose,” he answered with utter confidence. Santa smiled. So did Bob Paulson and all of Santa’s other helpers.

A Santa visit in 1985. 
Noah always asked Santa for wildlife. 

Noah then announced that he had heard Santa in the night. “I just heard footsteps,” he said. “Where?” I asked.

“Because you didn’t go next to the stockings,” Noah said. Logic doesn’t matter much to a six-year-old when it comes to Santa.

Logic doesn’t hold a candle to other rhymes or reasons this time of year. We had opened presents on Saturday night too, with Grandma Olson and Aunt Nancy, Uncle Randy and Aunt Therese, and Baby Grace. On Sunday morning, Noah joined us on the hide-a-bed, and said, “You know what the best present I got for Christmas was?”

“Your Indian village?” Cindy guessed.

No, the best present was having Christmas with Grandma and Nancy and Randy and Therese,” Noah said.

“And Grace,” I added.

“And Grace,” Noah said.

We didn’t rehearse that answer, honest Grandma.

I guess kids know the true meaning of Christmas after all.

Feeling the Glow of Christmas ~ December 30, 1993

David Heiller

Dear Grandma:

You’re probably looking for my annual Christmas letter to you. Practice for the Christmas program at church started three weeks ago. That’s about when Christmas starts for me.

Noah didn’t have a part. He just had to sing four songs with the other third and fourth graders. But that was more than enough. It wouldn’t be cool for a 10-year-old to admit that singing was fun.

Noah and Grandma Schnick. 
David wrote lots of letters to Grandma when she
was alive, and didn't stop after she passed.

But his actions said something else. Like when he warmed up in the car going to church on Sunday by making up a song. It was something about a missing cat. Mollie joined in at the end of each verse, and harmonized on the chorus. Cindy and I had big grins in the front seat. It was a great song! We didn’t dare interrupt them, being from the Land of Bland and all.

Mollie had a long part, but she didn’t have to memorize it, so she did all right. She played Jingle Bells on the piano too, before the program. She had asked her piano teacher to come hear her, and of course Pat did. Pat had told her to practice 10 times a day in order to get it right. Mollie had obeyed. If we had told her, she would have refused, but not for Pat. Pat is a cross between a grandmother and a saint to Mollie. Something like you were to me.

We sat with Pat on Sunday. We all held our breath as Mollie took her seat. Mary Cronin turned around from the pew ahead of us and gave us a smile of encouragement, as if we were playing, which is how we felt.

Mollie and her piano, the last minute practice.

Mollie placed the music on the piano, and sat up straight in her white dress, and played it loud and clear and perfectly. It’s funny how a simple song like Jingle Bells could sound so good and so pure coming from the hands of an eight year old. It lasted all of 30 seconds, but Handel’s Messiah couldn’t have sounded better to us.

Cindy went up afterward and gave her a hug. Mollie beamed, and said “Oh Mom!”

Christmas pageants sum up the good things about Christmas. No greedy commercialism. No gaudy lights. Just a lot of good songs, and a bunch of kids acting out a story that has a baby for a star.

The girls were dressed in bright calico dresses, and towered over boys their own age. They tried to look like teenagers, but their voices hit the high notes in pitch that reminded us that they are still just kids.

Yet as they stood up there, you saw how they had grown. Pretty soon they’ll be too old for this. Too soon.

The boys huddled together and looked aloof. But their true nature broke through here and there, like when they would smile when they saw their parents. Or like when Noah sang the chorus of “Angels We Have Heard On High.” Gloria, In Excelsis Deo. He sang it “Gloria, It Is Chelsea’s Day-O.” Chelsea Cronin was standing next to him, and I could tell what he was doing by the way Chelsea was smiling. It was aimed at her. I couldn’t yell at him too much though, since I had taught him the verse.

Cindy and I sat and watched it all, smiling with other parents. I put my arm around Cindy’s shoulder, and it felt good there, like that’s where it belonged.

Grandma had a way with those little ones.
Grandma Schnick and Malika.

Maybe you saw that from your seat in the Balcony.

I thought about you Sunday. I liked it when you would watch me in the Christmas programs back in Brownsville. You were always so proud. You never said so, but I could tell.

After the program, Pat gave Noah and Mollie Christmas presents, and told them what a good job they had done. Noah wondered when he could open it, and Pat told him right now, which made him happy. He’s anxious for Christmas to come. To him it comes with presents.

Someday he’ll know it comes with people like Pat, and with Christmas programs that have a baby for a star.

Then we went to the home of some friends. We ate a snack, and sat at their table. It felt good to talk. As we were leaving, we gave one another Christmas hugs.

Riding home in the dark, we felt the glow of Christmas. It had arrived for good that day with those good friends, with thoughtful people like Pat, with the boys and girls of the Christmas pageant.

And with the memory of people like you. Merry Christmas, Grandma.

Love, David

Some Christmas surprises ~ December 2003

David Heiller

Mom tried to sound nonchalant with her request. “Come see what I’ve got in the living room.”

I walked into that familiar room and couldn’t help smile. A bright little Christmas tree stood on the table near the window.

David and Fern

In fact, I was a little shocked, because for the first time this Christmas season, I felt Christmas. Something clicked, and there it was, just a thought, “Hey, it’s Christmas!”

Mom had gone to Mitchells to wish Doris and Mitch a happy 50th anniversary, and as usually happens when people go visit Doris and Mitch, she hadn’t left empty-handed. But no banjo parts for Mom—they had given her this tree.

“It used to be Grandma Heiller’s,” Mom said. That made the tree glow even brighter. Grandma died 20 years ago this November. Her house was always a welcome spot, and never more so than at Christmas. It’s good to have a part of her with us this year in the form of the tree, and good to see it in Mom’s house. Mom was going to go with something less festive. A couple of pine branches in a vase probably would have sufficed. Grandma’s old tree was perfect for her and Cindy and me.

Christmas comes in little surprise packages like that tree.

A second one hit me on Saturday. I stopped at Karen “Beak” Colsch’s house in Reno to take some pictures of “The Bauer Girls” (they definitely deserve capital letters) making Christmas cookies.

Christmas cookie time at our house.

I tried to act professional at first. “Do you have a system?” I asked Beak in a loud voice. “No, just chaos,” she shouted back.

So I dropped my reporter’s pretenses and stood in awe as about 20 people moved through the kitchen and living room, laughing, talking, rolling cookies, baking cookies, dipping cookies, carrying cookies, and yes, eating cookies.

Grandpa Bauer was fulfilling that role. “The kids get to unwrap all the candy, then Grandpa eats it,” his daughter, Cindy Augedahl, said with a laugh.

I took some pictures, which will appear in the December 24 Argus, then left, but not before Cindy presented me with a plate full of cookies.

Another dose of Christmas had snuck up on me at the Bauer’s cookie extravaganza. They eat some of the cookies, and they give some away to very appreciative friends and even a few schmucks like me. But mostly what they do is celebrate Christmas in fine fashion indeed. They are lucky.

Christmas in Christ Chapel.

That afternoon we went to a concert at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter where our daughter Malika was singing. Is there anything finer than watching your child—no matter how old—perform in a Christmas pageant?

The music was beautiful. The congregation joined the choir and orchestra on the final hymn, “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”, and there it was again, complete with goosebumps and a little baby named Jesus. Christmas.

I’ll wait for more surprises in the coming weeks. I hope they visit you too.

Friendly ghosts of Christmas past ~ December 7, 1989

David Heiller

My Favorite Christmas

Danny and I were getting frustrated. Christmas Day, 1963, was fast approaching, and we had rattled every box under the tree. We had rummaged through Mom’s closet, stepping on her shoes, lifting her skirts and coats, climbing up to the shelf. We were following our own Christmas tradition of trying to find out what Mom had bought us. And we had struck out.

Usually we unearthed something, a chemistry set, a pair of skates new socks or mittens. One mid-December we found a six-foot toboggan behind the cellar door. It was a painful discovery because we couldn’t use it for the next two weeks, and had to act surprised. On Christmas morning, my sister Jeanne peered at us and stated firmly, “You knew it was there, didn’t you?”

“No way,” we said, trying to save face. It didn’t wash with Jeanne. What a miserable way to get a great present. We loved it.

But we drew a blank in 1963. That Christmas Eve, we tossed in our beds, Danny and I, long after we should have been asleep. Glenn was home from college, and he was helping Mom carry presents into the living room. Danny crawled out of his bed, and stuck his head out from the curtain on our doorway, into the hall.

Glenn spotted him, and gave a quick slap on his cheek, like you might swat your four-year-old on the butt. You didn’t mess with Glenn on Christmas Eve. Danny went crying back to bed, but the crying ended quickly. Super Hiding by Mom! Short Temper by Glenn! We both knew The Present must be a good one. We fell asleep instantly.

David and his sister Lynette Christmas of 1957.

Lynette woke us up the next morning, stomping her foot outside our bedroom. I had to crawl over Glenn to get out the door. Danny was ahead of me. The house was dark, except for the flicker of light in front of the oil-burner in the hallway.

Lynette laughed and led us into the living room. We plugged in the Christmas tree lights, and saw The Present whose dignity Glenn had protected the night before, the size of a large shoe box. I looked at the tag and started shaking. Danny pounded on the wall to wake up Grandma and the girls upstairs. Mom’s bedroom light came on, and soon we heard the sisters creaking down, Grandma at their heels.

Mom said it was Danny’s turn to hand out the presents. How could she remember that from year to year? He doled them out: to Sharon, who was home from her job in Minneapolis, to Glenn, to Kathy, Mary, Jeanne, himself, Lynette, Mom, Grandma, me. The room was filled with people in pajamas and robes, all talking, ripping open wrapping paper, trying on new shirts, sweaters, shoes, hefting a model Corvette Sting-Ray, smelling Mennen Aftershave, saying Thank Yous real and imagined.

The Package was marked “David and Danny,” in Mom’s handwriting. We opened it together. Inside was a pair of Ray Guns.

I do not know what David and
Danny's ray gun looked like.

Wow. Black shiny plastic that smelled new, with a body like a gun and a yellow top that flared out like a mushroom. The top unscrewed to hold two D-cell batteries, included. Pull the trigger, and the light went on. But no ordinary plain white light, but a deadly Ray. That was the neatest part; in the head were four triangles of different colors. You turned the top and the light would shine a different color: red, green, blue, or yellow. High-Tech, 1963.

We squared off in that early December morning light. The sun was coming up, but we could still deal out justice of red, green, blue or yellow. Danny shot Glenn first. That night we took them to bed with us. We blasted the walls, the closet, the Venetian blinds, the dart board, Glenn, and each other. We played tag with their rainbow beams. No more Wet Washcloth Tag, Glenn’s favorite game. It was Ray Gun Season.

I think those Ray Guns were my favorite Christmas present, ever. What would I pay for them now? Money would be no object. But they were something that money couldn’t buy now. Favorite Christmas memories are like that.

Don’t argue with Christmas miracles ~ December 22, 1988

David Heiller

SATURDAY, DEC. 17—A Christmas miracle in the making: Dee Zuk sits with nine children in the church pew, nine children under the age of six. At the front of the church, older kids are saying their parts for the Christmas program. They giggle and stammer and push and read from parts that they should have memorized. Director Mary Cronin leads them along, like Mike Ditka on the sidelines with the Chicago Bears, urging them to cooperate.

But Dee Zuk has those nine children lined up as quiet as the proverbial church mice which inhabit Faith Lutheran Church.

“Do you have a Christmas tree?” Dee asks.

“I have two trees, one upstairs and one downstairs,” Laura Horton answers, sitting on the right hand of Dee the Teacher Almighty.

“Do you have a dog?” she continues.

My son, Noah, answers that he has two, Ida and Binti.

Noah and Malika with their cousin Sarah during a family Christmas. These were little kids at the time of this performance! Extra cute and extra nerve-wracking.

“One for you and one for Mollie?” Dee asks. “No, both for me,” Noah answers.

Dee ushers the nine to the front of the church, like a duck leading her fledglings to water. Mollie, age three, sits next to Noah, who has yet to learn that it isn’t cool to sit next to your sister in a Christmas program.

Dee leads the little kids: “God sent Jesus down from heaven.” They all repeat after Dee, pointing their finger skyward, then arching it back to earth.

“Jesus taught us to love each other.” The kids fold their arms close to their chest, except for Mollie, who has her finger up her nose.

^“Jesus loves you and you and me.” They point their fingers at each other, then at themselves. Mollie takes her finger from her nose, puts it in her mouth.

“Because of His love, we are all His children.”

Their voices are strong with Dee leading them, but when she stops, they are struck dumb, which is another miracle for nine children under the age of six.

SUNDAY, DEC. 18—the miracle continued: Bev Peterson played Christmas hymns on the piano at the left side of the church, which filled up slowly but surely last Sunday morning, like churches do when children give their Christmas programs. Parents like me sat erect, on the edge of the pew; as if they were watching the Vikings play the Rams, and feeling just as jittery.

The piano rang out with Joy to the World, and the parents seemed to relax a bit. The 16-foot balsam Christmas tree next to Bev swayed at the top, as wind from the ceiling fan swished the tinsel back and forth. With the music, you could imagine that tree in the woods on a snowy morning, moving in a gentle breeze.

I sat in the fourth pew from the front, upon strict instructions from my wife, Cindy, who is also a Sunday school teacher. I didn’t know why I should sit so far up, but I don’t question Cindy on matters of religious faith and church etiquette. So I sat there, feeling conspicuous. I glanced over my shoulder and saw many other parents looking conspicuous. Their minds, like mine, were focused on their kids and the Christmas program. They were thinking: Would their children forget their lines? Maybe start crying, or pull up their dresses, or put their fingers in their nose? Maybe start the Christmas tree on fire?

Finally, the bell pealed, and 30 children marched forward, singing Oh Come, All Ye Children. They took their seats in the front, facing us. Cindy sat one pew ahead of me. We both stared at Mollie as she followed Noah up, jostling others to grab the chair on his left. Mollie saw us, smiled and waved. Noah joined her in waving. We both lowered our eyebrows and shook our heads. They stopped waving.

The program progressed, and it progressed well. Mary Cronin had worked a miracle that Mike Ditka would have been proud of. The older kids said their lines without help, holding the microphone like a stick of dynamite. They even showed some football razzle-dazzle, passing the mike quickly behind their backs to the next kid.

Then the pre-school part came. Dee knelt in front of her charges. The kids said their words loud and clear, while Dee whispered along. My eyes were glued to Mollie, hoping, even praying that she would keep her finger pointed to heaven instead of her nose. My prayer was answered. Their part ended, and it went perfectly.

And the miracles continued. The children sang Away in the Manger, and no one even noticed when Knute fell down in the back row. They sang Hark, the Herald Angels Sing, and no one blinked when Laura left her spot to confer with Dee in the front pew. Dee whispered a few magical words, and Laura returned to her place in front.

During Oh Christmas Tree, Mollie started to push Noah, grabbing him by the arm. Noah pushed back, and it looked like the start of a World Wrestling Federation match. Then Mollie glanced at her mom and dad. Actually, her head was turned by the force of our glares. In that instant it suddenly dawned why Cindy had asked me to sit at the front of the church. Our eyes blazed like lasers at Mollie. I’m not a pretty sight even when I smile, but the look I gave Mollie would have sent dogs howling for cover. With Cindy in front, Mollie suddenly was staring down a double barreled shotgun. She put Noah’s arm down, and looked straight ahead.

The program ended as we all sang Go Tell it on the Mountain. Then the little kids returned to their parents’ side, and you could almost hear half the congregation, young parents like me, breath a sigh of relief, and you could almost feel the other half, the grandmas and grandpas who have weathered this ordeal many times, bursting with pride.

Mollie slid in next to me. “Do you have any gum, Daddy?” she asked. I pulled a stick out, and broke it in half, giving part to her and part to Noah. Mollie started chewing, then cuddled up close. “I love you, Dad,” she said, looking at me.

“I love you,” I answered.

Maybe it was the Dentyne, maybe it was Christmas. Whatever it was, I didn’t care. You don’t question miracles.

Waiting for Christmas ~ December 14, 2000

David Heiller

The thermometer read six degrees below zero on Sunday afternoon. I headed for the woods with a folding saw and tape measure in my coat pocket.

The wind had died and the sun was shining, and six degrees below zero didn’t seem so bad, not on a Sunday afternoon in December.

Even MacKenzie, one of our dogs, seemed improved by it. She had lain in the house all weekend, walking on three legs. Noah said he had seen her come up limping after a race with our other dog, Sully.

Mollie wanted us to call the veterinarian. Cindy and I thought we should wait.

Could this be the same MacKenzie on Sunday afternoon, running through the woods ahead of me, with barely a limp to see? She couldn’t resist the beautiful brisk day. Mother Nature is a quick healer.

I walked along the north line of our property, looking for a Christmas tree. There’s a white spruce that would do. But only as a last resort. They lose their needles too fast. We’ve had a few holidays where the tree looks like something only Charlie Brown could love by Christmas. Needles fall like an avalanche every time you brush against it.

I walked west, past big oak trees and sugar maples and poplars and some scraggly balsams. I came to a low spot. My boots hit ice, broke through, hit water. Mud and branches held me fast for a minute. The weather would have to get a lot colder to harden the wet spots.

The land opened up where loggers had done their work about 10 years ago. Ah hah. A beautiful balsam. Almost a perfect shape. A little bottle neck near the top, but a heavy dose of lights and ornaments as only Cindy can administrate would cover that. I’d give it a nine out of ten.

But my nose was into the wind. I could smell a better tree, the way a fisherman can sense when a fish is ready to strike. I kept walking; balsams were everywhere, all shapes and sizes.

Then there it was. A ten. Not too fat. Not too bushy. I took the tape measure out of my pocket Just the right height, nine feet, six inches of perfect tree.

Not Bork Tree farm perfect, mind you. But it would do for the back 40.

Malika and MacKenzie and our back 40 tree.

I unfolded the saw and cut the tree down. Yes, I felt a twinge of regret. A living organism and all that. But there were 10,000 more trees within eye sight of this one. And what joy it will bring to us!

I dragged it to the road in the woods, then walked back to the house and roused Noah off his easy chair. The Vikings weren’t playing for another hour. He grumbled a bit, then put on some heavy clothes. We trudged back to the tree and carried it the quarter mile to its new home

I trimmed another six inches off the stump and cut off a few bottom branches. Then we set it in the stand in the living room. Perfect.

Getting the tree was good for me, because I felt some of the Christmas spirit return for the first time in about 11½ months. It’s been missing for me, and I worry that someday going to be such a crotchety old man that I’m not going to be able to find it.

I found a part of it when I found the Christmas tree. It snuck in with the. cold and sun, with the dogs racing through the woods and the chickadees flitting in the branches, and my son walking by my side. It was written in the snow by deer and mice and squirrels.

We are always waiting for something, Pastor Laura said at church Saturday night. A first kiss, graduation, marriage, children, a new job, a promotion, retirement.

Now I’m waiting for Christmas, and that makes me glad. Waiting for gifts to give and receive. Waiting for company and kids and music and laughter. Waiting for big meals and colorful lights.

And last but not least, waiting for the story that never grows old, about a little baby that changed the world.

A 1992 Christmas letter to Grandma ~ December 24, 1992

David Heiller

Dear Grandma:

Time for another Christmas letter. My fourth one to you.

The Christmas program at church went well, as you probably know from your balcony seat.

Somehow things always manage to go OK. The practices were another matter. In practice, no one knows their lines. At the program, everyone (well almost everyone) has them down pat.

A pre-Christmas program twirl.

In practice, the kids sing so loud you have to tell them to quiet it down, to SING, not shout. In the program, you can barely hear them.

Maybe it’s the costumes. Put a pair of angel wings on a kid, or a halo fastened to a bent coat hanger, and they act like angels. Put them in a bathrobe, with a dishtowel for a hat, and they are as humble as shepherds.

Except for Timmy. First he wouldn’t say his part in practice. Then his mother, DeeAnn, tried to coax him into his robe amidst the roar of dressing for the program. He crossed his arms in front of him and started crying. DeeAnn led him to the back room, by the furnace, her face as determined as Timmy’s. He looked like he was paying a visit to the proverbial woodshed.

Ten minutes later, DeeAnn and Timmy rejoined us as we waited outside the church doors. Tim was robe-less and tearless, and DeeAnn looked like she had just gone nine rounds with a four-year-old Evander Holyfield.

She must have done some serious plea bargaining, because when Tim’s turn came before the microphone, he said: “We’re so excited we’re going to tell everyone!” Maybe it wasn’t quite that clear, but he said it. You could tell by the sparkle in his mother’s eyes.

Doug played Joseph. He had the longest part, and didn’t trust his memory. He pulled out a piece of paper from the pocket of his bathrobe. It looked like a used Kleenex, and shook when he read. But read it he did, and well. He carried on the proud tradition of Josephs that date back to Brownsville, 1965 (my stellar role, you may recall), and beyond to that first Joseph, 1,992 years ago.

Some of the kids had so much confidence. Like Lisa, who recited her 83 words slicker than sleet. She’s had it memorized for three weeks, and she wasn’t about to get tongue tied now, in front of her mother, father, aunt, uncle, and 42 other relatives. She’ll probably remember that part for the rest of her life. Even if she wants to forget it.

Murphy’s Law 29-G states that someone must get the giggles in every Christmas pageant. This year Chrissy and Wendy got the nod. They came in a bit too early on the second verse of their song with Clint and Joe. It doesn’t take much to start a 13-year-old girl laughing in church. But they didn’t laugh long. They didn’t want any BOYS to out-sing them.

The rest of the music was good too. The children sang loud enough, and they didn’t shout after all. I sang with them a little bit, to get them going, but stopped myself. There’s nothing finer or purer than the sound of children singing at a Christmas program.

Grandma Schnick and Noah together at
Christmas, before these letters began.

As usual, Bev had the best song, “Jesus, Name Above All Names.” The music rolled like waves of water off her piano, and the kids rode the waves like celestial surfers. OK, maybe I’m stretching it. You know what I mean.

Noah and Mollie did all right. Mollie had on her white dress with a red ribbon. She didn’t have any wings, and didn’t need them, except for when she pointed to the back of the church when Donna came in.

Noah said his part without a hitch. He had called Connie, his babysitter, before the program, to see if she was coming. Called her up on the phone, like he wanted to take her to the Prom. Never mind that she’s 15 and he’s nine. I’m not sure what her plans had been for that Sunday afternoon but Connie being Connie, she came. She’s starred in a few of these herself, and not too long ago.

Wow, how kids grow up. I seem to notice it at Christmas programs. Boys and girls who were in Sunday School yesterday are suddenly changing into young men and women. I guess you saw that too.

I miss you, lots, Grandma. Till next year.
Love, David

Getting to know the woods ~ December 17, 2003

David Heiller

The two dogs and I headed into the woods on Sunday afternoon. It was something I had wanted to do for several weeks, but work had kept it on the back burner.

There’s something very inviting about woods this time of year. The ground is hard, so there’s no mud. There’s a little snow for contrast, but not too much to make walking difficult, and you can see everything.

The view from our deck as well as all of the east facing windows. The river is down there, but also our woods,

and what we refer to as Heiller Valley.

It is now owned by the State of Minnesota.

Our woods are even more of a magnet to me because I really don’t know them yet. I’ve walked over the hills a time or two, but it takes a while to get to know a piece of land, years really.

I scurried down the hill, eased over a barbed wire fence, and entered the woodlot. My new Allis Chalmers WD tractor was in the back of my mind. “Could it handle this trail without tipping,” I asked myself as I walked along.

“Νο, not here,” I said with a grimace at a few steep spots.

“Here it will be fine,” I said at an equal number of places. Cindy calls my tractor a widow maker. I hope she’s wrong—and so does she!

I skirted three hills, sizing up the trees that were standing, and looking at the debris from the logging that had taken place a few years earlier. We have hundreds of cords of oak and hickory firewood ready to be sawed up and hauled to the house. Making firewood is never an easy job, and this project will be even harder because of the steep terrain where much of it lies. That’s why I was visualizing the tractor in the woods.

It was a sober walk in some ways, seeing all the tree tops lying on the ground. I kept wishing I had seen these woods before the chainsaws came. I noticed a new gully that had opened up in the midst of the logging, with fresh brown dirt ready to be washed into the valley with the spring run-off. Would the trees have held that in check?

But I’ve seen enough woods to know that they recover in time. The trees still standing will far outlast me. That’s the big picture. The ones that got cut will go to good homes, like the one we are building.

I reached the edge of our 20 acres of woods, and crossed onto some land owned by Duane Thomford. He has a cabin overlooking the broad Heiller Valley. That’s what I call it, because it’s where my grandparents and then their son Donny lived and farmed for about 40 years. It’s state land now.

Duane had told me to take a walk out there, that it was a good view. I realized on Sunday that Duane is a master of understatement. The sight from that cabin was as close to an Ansel Adams view as I’ve seen in Minnesota. The huge valley is flanked by hill after hill, then it opens up like a huge smile to the Mississippi River.

I peered down into the bottom of the valley and saw the familiar fields where Donny had planted corn and alfalfa. I traced the route that he would go, first on the north side of the ravine, then down into the gulch and up to the south side , then a bit west, and then up the steep hill to his field on the ridge.

Talk about tipping tractors—Dοnny would make that run up the ridge with a hayrack behind!

I’ll always remember a joke he pulled on me on that trail. Before he would descend with a full load of hay bales, he would take iron wedges and put them in front of the wagon wheels. Only then would he slowly creep down. The wedges kept the wheels locked in place. His helpers, like me, sat on top of the hay bales, oblivious to any danger.

One time after a swaying descent, when we got to the flat land in the valley, Dοnny backed off the wedges and called me over. “Feel how smooth that is,” he said, running his hand over the shiny wedge.

I ran my fingers over it and yelped. That metal was hot enough to fry a grilled cheese sandwich. Donny was always a famous trickster, and he had fooled me again. I had to laugh in spite of the pain. And the burns healed just fine after a couple years.

Just kidding Donny.

The Heiller Valley beckoned to me again on Sunday, just like it did those 40 years ago. But the light was fading, so I turned around and went home through the top of the woods and I found what I was looking for.

No, not the spring that Duane said is on the property. He’ll have to show me that himself, unless he’s pulling an Uncle Donny.

The spot I found was a big tree that had not met the loggers standards for cord wood, for some blessed reason. It was standing on a ledge with smooth ground all around, and a four-foot high crop of limestone at its edge.

Oh boy, I could see myself with a book or a banjo at that spot, leaning against the tree on a fine spring day.

Yes, I’ll get to know our property better. I can’t wait for the next 30 years to transpire.