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 Our balsams and spruce from up north have been replaced by good old oak and hickory.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.

Shining so clearly ~ January 2, 1992

David Heiller

The stars stood sharply in the cold Christmas Eve sky as Noah (nine) and I headed to Faith Lutheran Church last Tuesday night. I pointed out Orion, who stood guard over our mailbox.

Orion usually guards the outhouse when I see him, but the season is moving, and Orion is moving with it. He’ll visit the outhouse in a few hours.

I pointed out the three stars of his belt, the stars that outlined his broad shoulders, his knees, his sword. Noah liked the sword part.

We headed up the road. Α moon just-past-full was rising on our right, like a squished orange. We watched it climb above the snow and brush. It would soon blot out the weaker stars of the sky, leaving only stalwarts like Orion and the Big Bear.

The Bear arched above Couillard’s house, but I couldn’t see a bear. I’ve never seen the Bear in Ursula Major, but it’s hard not to see its more common name and shape: the Big Dipper.

I pointed the dipper out to Noah, and he spotted it right away. I told him to follow the last two stars of the dipper out a bit, and he could find the North Star. “It stands all alone. It’s right above the road. That’s how I know this road runs due north and south,” I said.”

“I see it,” he answered with excitement.

“Stars were important a long time ago,” I told Noah in my official father voice that will soon bore him to tears. He’s not quite that old yet though, so he answered, “Why?”

“People can tell where they are by the stars. They use a sextant and it tells them right where they are on a map,” I said.

David and his kids circa 1992

“Like a compass,” he said.

“Yeah, kind of,” I answered, not being an expert with either instrument.

“Hey Dad, the moon is moving with us,” Noah said. It did look that way. It seemed to keep a few steps ahead on our right. Now it hung over the open field east of the church, away from the brush.

There was mystery in the night, with Orion and this moon and the North Star and all.

At church, we joined the rest of the family for the candlelight service. We listened as Pastor Sjoblom read passages from the Bible, passages without heavy lessons. Passages that told a simple story, which kept us listening and smiling even at this late hour.

We listened to the simple refrains from a clarinet played by Karla Kropp. No fancy organ to pound and pump us up, just single notes by a girl, strung together into sounds that fit the little church like a warm mitten.

We lit candles. The yellow light glowed off faces of friends and neighbors, wives and husbands, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, and most important, of children.

Mollie stood proudly at my side, holding her candle up straight like the pastor had told us. Her eyes glistened with the light.

We sang Silent Night. I remembered how my Grandma Heiller would treat us with the German version, “Stine Nacht,” when we begged her enough, back when my Candlelight was young.

Then the wonders of candlelight at church on Christmas Eve returned from somewhere deep inside, deep in the past, and warmed me once again.

Afterward, Noah and I hit the road again, back the quarter mile to home. The words to an old Christmas time came to mind:

(Listen to the song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpizGdABJkI)

‘Twas on a night like this, a little babe was born.
The shepherds gathered ‘round, to guard him till the dawn.   Above them shone a star, a star so wondrous light,
That never since in all those years have they seen one half so bright.
Shining so truly, shining so brightly,   guiding their footsteps from afar.   It led them through the night;   A path to love and brotherhood   by following its light.

We walked home quietly, followed by the moon, and the North Star, and the Big Bear, and Orion, and those other witnesses to the star that made this all possible.

Maybe it was on a night like this...

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.

Missing shoes: a sign of Christmas ~ December 9, 1993

David Heiller

The missing shoes convinced me that Christmas is here. The missing wedding ring was the first clue, but the shoes convinced me.

David and the kids at the kitchen table.

The wedding ring disappeared on Monday morning. I had showed the kids at breakfast how shiny the ring was. It had been polished a few days earlier. Noah looked at the ring, then Μalika looked at the ring. Then the ring was gone.

I first noticed it at work. I reached for my finger to feel the ring. It’s a habit I have when I talk to pretty women (like my wife). It was gone.

All day my finger felt naked. We called the school, and asked if she had taken it to school. She hadn’t. We believed her, sort of. She knows the value of that ring to me. She wouldn’t give it away, or trade it for some Skittles, not on purpose at least. But drug addicts know the dangers of drugs, and still take them. That’s the way my daughter can be with shiny gold things.

When we got home, we looked all over the house for it. Mollie said she remembered putting it on the dining room table. That’s the table that you can’t see the top of, because it is covered with Christmas ornaments and candles and wise men.

My stomach started fluttering. The ring is handmade. There’s only one other like it, and my wife wears it.

Then Cindy went to turn on the radio, and there was the ring, and suddenly everyone was forgiven, including the person who probably left it there—me.

As for my shoes, they still haven’t turned up. I took them off somewhere on Monday night, and Tuesday morning they were gone. They might be on the dining room table too, and we might find them after Christmas.

Meanwhile I’m wearing a black shiny pair that I last wore on my wedding day in 1980. They are too tight. That happens when you have babies, I hear.

Christmas is a beautiful time of year. It’s also a time when people forget where they put their wedding rings and shoes.

Malika could turning all things,
 live or pretend, into her friends.

It’s a time when eight-year-old girls forget about their Barbies and play with Mary and Joseph and the three wise men instead. I didn’t know they could carry on such interesting conversations. They were mostly silent when I was a kid. Not to my daughter.

It’s a time to walk through the woods looking for that perfect tree, and finding it along with a few other treasures, like the paw prints of a wolf, and a pileated woodpecker that laughs and flies away like a tiny jet.

If you are eight, it’s a time to wear the skirt that is supposed to go underneath the Christmas tree. The skirt looked good on Mollie. Happy Petersen of Askov made it, and it made Mollie happy. It fit her too. She looked like she stepped out of a Jan Brett children’s book when she wore it. I didn’t think she would give it up, but like the ring, I was wrong. Cindy put it under the tree on Monday night. It looks good there too.

David and Red at the Askov American office.

Christmas is also a time to count your blessings. Red Hansen is doing that these days. He had double bypass heart surgery on November 12, and if you wonder why Askov seemed a bit lonely recently, it’s because Red hasn’t been roaming the streets.

He finally got the okay to drive last Friday, so he stopped in the office for a visit on Monday. He said he’s feeling better. Then he mentioned that he has a new valve in his heart that came from a pig. Apparently the heart of a pig is similar to the heart of a human, which explains a lot about humans.

Red was glad he got the pig valve, instead of the other kind that sends a ball through a wire cage. The other kind is like a check valve, he said. It sounds more like Chutes and Ladder to me. It makes a steady clicking sound, he said, and Red worried that this might have thrown off his rhythm with his accordion.

I allowed as maybe you can get them to change their beat. Yeah Doc, I’d like a heart valve in three-quarter time, please. I’m a waltz man.

Red also wondered how old the pig was that graciously donated its valve. What if it was an old codger, and had only another year to go? Red worries about things like that, with his tongue in his cheek.

Think about it. And let me know if you find a pair of brown shoes.