Christmas Oddyssey - Part III

A guitar. I couldn't believe it. It seemed excessively generous. It still does. But I love it.

After Mass, I introduced our pastor to my parents. He looked very tired, but greeted them in his usual delighted fashion. Wandering over to my music group, I chatted with them for a few minutes. Everybody was happy, and we talked jokingly of doing it again soon.

My mother mentioned to me that we had to drop her leather coat by my brother's house. We weren't going to get to see them before they flew out, and she would need it. So we headed home, picked up daughter #1, and the jacket, and headed over to my brother's. They were all still awake, and my brother came out in his bathrobe to give me a hug.

“Happy birthday,” I said, “But I guess it isn't your birthday anymore, is it?”

“Crazy brother,” He replied.

We headed off to Sharbot Lake. It was now about two in the morning. For the last three years, the weather on Christmas Eve has been terrible. There is always a snow squall, or freezing rain, or something. This year it was raining and foggy. For a while, the temperatures seemed to hover slightly above freezing. Highway seven was dry.

But when we turned off onto the 509, it wasn't just slick. It was a skating rink. The road had been bathed with a light coating of ice. My wife put the car into second, then first, and we drove along at ten kilometers per hour.

“We're not in any hurry, right?” She said.

On the second big hill, the car's tires began to spin halfway up. We backed off, and tried again. We couldn't do it. The adults got out of the car. Seeya the puppy was being very good, quietly sleeping on my younger daughter's lap. My older daughter wandered in and out of consciousness.

“Let's see how bad this road really is,” my wife said, as we stepped out onto the hill. Although the pebbles and texture of the road was there, the sheen of ice was firm. It was a rough skating rink, but still a skating rink.

We got back in the car and rested for a while. And then, realizing that this was how it was meant to be, called Seeya's soon-to-be owner, my brother in law. It had been an impossible ordeal getting even this far with the dog, so beginning the gift-giving on a foggy and icy hill was going to have to do. We phoned, catching him just as he was on his way back to bed from an early morning trip to the bathroom.

“We're stuck.”

“Where are you?”

“Just off of highway seven, on the five oh nine. The hill past the little church.”

“Stay where you are. I'm coming, and I'll drive you out.”

He got there about forty five minutes later. I stood off the left shoulder, as my brother backed way down the hill, got up a furious speed in our station wagon, and barreled the wagon at the hill. In the back, quiet and sleeping was Seeya. Before taking another run, the kids bundled her out of the car in a blanket. After a couple of tries, up and over the car went, and drove out of sight.

A few minutes later, a shadowy figure trekked out of the fog at the top of the hill.

“Come here. We've got your Christmas present here, and I don't think it can wait,” my wife said.

“No, no, we'll...”

“Better do it now,” I said, “I've got a feeling you'll like it.”

Off came the blanket on the sweet faced yellow Lab puppy. That Christmas glow of instant love, that affection you see on a kid's face when their favourite wish appears under the tree, spread across his face, as he gingerly took and cradled the puppy in the blanket. “Sweetheart,” He said softly.

Christmas had come. It came without boxes, bows, and bags. But it came all the same.

We all drove slowly back to the cottage. We got there at twenty after seven in the morning, just in time to put the coffee on and open the stockings. Not a minute late, even if none of us had slept in a day.