The Christmas Letters (2 page)

Read The Christmas Letters Online

Authors: Bret Nicholaus

Tags: #FAM000000

BOOK: The Christmas Letters
11.46Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

I
HELD THE
T
AND
I
WAS NEXT
.

“The T is for Train,” he said to me. The word was not even out of his mouth when it struck me: Every year, under our Christmas tree, I place an old metal train on some rusty tracks—Grandpa's train from when he was a young boy. He was the son of immigrant parents, and it was the first real Christmas gift his dad had been able to buy for him. Grandpa had given the train to my dad when he turned six years old, and my dad had given it to me when I reached the same age. Knowing that someone still cared about that train—still placed under a tree after eight decades—was so significant to him.

Yet I had never given any serious thought to its emotional value; for me, it had simply been something to fill space under the bottom row of pine boughs.

Whether or not he meant to do it, Grandpa was delivering a lesson worth remembering: It's the little things in life that often mean the most.

L
OOKING AT MY TWENTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD
sister, he said, “M is for Mistletoe—yes, mistletoe. It's no secret that nobody wants to go out of their way to give a kiss to a wrinkled, elderly man—I sure wouldn't if I were you! And yet you do it every single year. You catch me standing under that mistletoe hanging in the archway of the front door, and then you always run over to give Grandpa a Christmas kiss on the cheek. I love you so much for that.”

My sister had that mixed look of being both slightly embarrassed and highly flattered at the same time.

M
Y DAD HAD THE
A. I was pretty certain that I knew what his letter stood for, but I held back the urge to speak my thoughts. The stage that night belonged to Grandpa.

“The A is for Angel. Even after all these years and the fact that you've got a wonderful family of your own, you still let me put the angel in place at the top of your tree. Remember the year that mom and I couldn't be there for the tree-trimming party? You kept the angel off the top until two nights later, when we could finally get to your house. Your willingness to let me have an important part in that annual event is something that has always meant a lot to me.”

“It has always meant a lot to us, too,” my dad answered. “It just wouldn't be the same if you didn't top-off the tree.”

T
URNING TO MY MOM
, his daughter-in-law and hostess for the night, he completed the explanation of the letters.

“This S is for Spices…the ones that you simmer on the stove every Christmas Eve. It's funny how certain scents bring back such wonderful memories and how they can almost transport you to another time and place. When I was a child, my mother used to simmer cloves and cinnamon on the stove during the holidays. My parents could never afford much of anything, so at an early age I learned to savor even the smallest of pleasures; one of them was Mother's Christmas spices. Every year when I smell that in your house, you take me back to her kitchen during the holidays. I'm very grateful to you for that.”

My mom beamed from ear to ear. Until that moment, she never knew that the smell of those spices was so meaningful to Grandpa. Unintentionally, she had been giving him a gift that he treasured year after year.

G
RANDPA LEANED BACK IN HIS CHAIR
, breathed a deep sigh, and repeated what he had said just minutes before.

“Pull those letters out every year and remember the important piece of Christmas that each of you meant to me.”

My aunt got up from her chair and began walking over to give Grandpa a hug. Suddenly, he reached for one more unopened envelope, hidden on his lap.


I
HAVE ONE MORE PIECE OF
C
HRISTMAS
that I'd like to share with all of you,” he said.

My aunt stopped in her tracks and then slowly moved back toward her seat, no doubt curious about what he would do next. As he opened the final envelope, a look of incredible resolve came over Grandpa's face. It was as if he wanted us to believe that this was the most important envelope any of us would ever see opened; in many ways, it was.

A
S EACH OF US FIXED OUR EYES ON
G
RANDPA
, wondering what this last letter was going to be, my mom spoke up.

“What letter are you going to show us, Dad? All the letters that represent C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S have already been handed out.”

He reached in and with a slightly trembling hand pulled out one last letter, larger than the others. It was the letter J.

B
Y THIS POINT IN THE EVENING
, I was getting pretty good at guessing what each letter represented. A couple of thoughts raced quickly through my head. J? Maybe it stood for Jingle Bells, but that didn't seem to be worth its own special envelope. Then it hit me: Santa hadn't been mentioned yet in the course of the discussion. Creative as Grandpa was, the J might stand for Jolly Old Saint Nick. What would Christmas be without him? That
had
to be it!

A
FEW SECONDS SEEMED LIKE LONG MINUTES
as we anxiously awaited the explanation. Then Grandpa spoke: “Without this letter, all the other important pieces of Christmas wouldn't mean nearly as much—not to me, and I hope not to you either. The letter J is for Jesus.”

Like everyone else seated at the table, I was stunned at his response. We waited to hear more.

“I know that I've never been an overtly religious man,” Grandpa declared. “But I want all of you to know that in my heart, this letter J—what it stands for—is the most important of all.”

W
E WERE STILL RECOVERING FROM
his unexpected response when he raised up the letter in front of his face so that all of us could have a clear look at it. And then he said something that I'll never forget.

“You see,” Grandpa said, “without this piece of Christmas, there can be no
peace
of Christmas.”

A
LTHOUGH THE STATEMENT SEEMED
simple enough on the surface, I heard—and felt—in those words something profound. All of a sudden, things like lakeside summer homes, country club memberships, and burgeoning careers appeared insignificant. Perhaps most importantly, it was immediately clear that in the incredibly hectic and stressful pace of the holiday season—with its overcrowded malls, maxed-out credit cards, and endless parties—we had completely lost our focus.

T
WO WEEKS EARLIER
, my wife and I had stood out in the cold and bickered for nearly thirty minutes over whether to buy a Scotch pine or a balsam fir as our Christmas tree. After what had just been said, arguing over a tree seemed not only petty but downright pathetic. It was as if Grandpa had single-handedly put the entire season in its proper perspective, a perspective all too often underappreciated or overlooked altogether.

G
RANDPA ASKED MY MOM FOR A PAIR OF SCISSORS
.

When he had them in his hand, he took the letter J and carefully cut it up into ten equal parts. He kept one piece for himself before handing out the remaining nine, one to each person at the table.

“The other letters will remind you of what you meant to
my
Christmas, but I hope that this letter will always remind you of what Jesus can mean to
your
Christmas,” Grandpa concluded.

We sat in a rare moment of quiet and reflection, the smell of simmering spices wafting our way and the sound of “Silent Night” playing softly on the kitchen radio….

T
HE OTHER EVENING, AFTER
I
HAD PULLED
out the red velvet letter T that Grandpa gave me nearly a year ago, I thought about that train like never before: how much it had meant to him and how much more it now means to me. As I was connecting the last two pieces of track and feeling the pain of Grandpa's absence, I reached for the wallet in the back pocket of my pants and pulled out my piece of the letter J.

T
O SOMEONE ELSE, IT WOULD LOOK LIKE
any other one-inch scrap of hand-cut red velvet; to me, it will always symbolize something infinitely greater. I squeezed it in my hand and pondered its meaning, all the while recalling Grandpa's words: “Without this piece of Christmas, there can be no
peace
of Christmas.”

I
LOOKED UP TOWARD THE CEILING
, but my thoughts reached all the way to heaven. I was no longer sad, but glad.

“Thank you, Grandpa,” was all that I could say.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

—Traditional Apostolic Blessing, based on Philippians 4:7

Other books

Ruthless by Cheryl Douglas
Brief Gaudy Hour: A Novel of Anne Boleyn by Margaret Campbell Barnes
Troubled Treats by Jessica Beck
Circles of Time by Phillip Rock
The Cinnamon Tree by Aubrey Flegg
The Night's Legacy by P.T. Dilloway
Chasing Sylvia Beach by Cynthia Morris
Peyton Place by Grace Metalious