A Treasury of Christmas Stories Read online

  Worse, at my aunt’s house, I was the oldest child. I was expected to “know better” and to do right. Only I didn’t know better and seldom seemed to do right. In my house, I was an only child. I was treasured and pampered by my mother and a loving pair of grandparents. At my aunt’s, I was just one of three and the “big girl.” So I was embarrassed to tell her how afraid and lonely I was at night.

  My aunt was waiting at the train station when we arrived. I was so excited to see my little cousin! But when we walked through the door of their home, my aunt announced that she had found a perfect playmate for me, a boy who had just moved into the apartment next door. A boy. That meant trouble. Boys were the ones who teased you at school, pulled your hair, and called you dirty names you didn’t understand and your mother wouldn’t explain to you. They carried out their threats to punch you in the stomach, so hard you gasped for air. At five and a half, I’d learned that it was best to stay away from boys, and I for sure didn’t want one for a friend.

  Despite my earnest protests, my aunt went next door and fetched Freddie. He was a little younger than I, having just turned five, but he was much taller. He came in and we were introduced. Neither of us spoke. I knew I was safe as long as the adults were around, but I didn’t relish being alone with him. So when he asked me to come over to see his toy soldiers — “Because,” he said, looking askance at my doll collection, “there isn’t anything good to play with here” — I hesitated.

  “Go,” my aunt said. “Go. You’re a big girl.” (There it was again.) “It’s only across the hall.”

  I hated to feel stupid, so I went. And there they were. Two hundred toy soldiers, lined up for battle. Colonels, commanders, lieutenants, officers, privates, and sergeants, ready for action, waiting for Freddie. They all wore green, all two hundred of them. In fact, everything was army green, right down to the tanks and jeeps.

  Freddie fell to the floor: “Bang, bang!” he shouted. “Look out, men. The enemy! Vroom, vroom! Chuggle, chuggle!” The jeep rode along. “Bang, bang. Duck! Open fire! Charge!”

  I was transfixed.

  Freddie looked up at me. “Well, what are you waiting for? Come on. Let’s play!”

  He actually wanted me to play. I dove down but I didn’t know what to do. I was used to dressing and holding my baby dolls. I tentatively picked up a soldier and made a feeble attempt at “bang, bang.”

  “No,” Freddie said, looking genuinely appalled. “You just shot one of our men. The enemies are over there!” He pointed.

  “They all look the same,” I offered.

  “Girls,” he muttered. “On the other side of this line — over there!” he said, pointing again. “Those are the enemy.”

  Then he did the oddest thing. He took my hand and placed it in his, over the soldier. “Now say ‘bang, bang,’” he said.

  “Bang, bang!”

  “Great,” he said. “Now, try it alone.”

  We played for hours. It wasn’t like playing with dolls, but Freddie made it fun. So much so, that I could hardly wait till morning when Freddie planned to come back for a visit.

  The next day I tried out my cousin’s bows and magnetic arrows, missing the target every time. Freddie walked over and put his arms around me. “Like this,” he said, guiding my hand gently and patiently. I drew my arm back and got a bull’s-eye. Freddie’s eyes lit up. I remember it as though it were yesterday. “Yes, great!” he said, genuinely happy for me.

  Half of me was beginning to trust this male creature, the other half was waiting for him to start teasing or punching me. But it never happened. I had never felt the way I felt when Freddie placed his arms around me. It was a new feeling; a funny feeling. A very soft and close feeling. This, from a boy person. I felt, for the first time in my life, like a girl. A real girl.

  Subsequent visits to my aunt and uncle’s became less and less gloomy-sounding, and the nights, once scary, were now filled with the anticipation of the next day’s bringing Freddie and his ever-ready toy soldiers. Freddie and his platoon seemed to be glued together. If Freddie came over, so, too, did the soldiers. If I went to Freddie’s, the men in green stood ready and waiting.

  I learned something by playing with Freddie. I learned to put my dolls aside and to play with soldiers, even if it wasn’t as much fun. Because Freddie liked it. And he learned, too, I think, that playing father to my dolls wasn’t the end of the world. In fact, sometimes I think he almost liked it.

  I didn’t know firsthand about romance, but I had seen many movies, and Freddie and I began to kiss goodnight, first on the cheek, then once behind closed doors on the lips. I felt pretty for the first time in my life. My family and other adults used to say how pretty I was. But the boys in school made me feel like I had the bubonic plague or something. With Freddie, well, I felt, just maybe, that I wasn’t half bad after all.

  We visited Pennsylvania again for Christmas. I got the doll I wanted from my mother and a real pearl necklace from my aunt. By now, Freddie and I had known each other about a year and a half. On this visit, we stayed for several days, so I had plenty of time to be with Freddie. When the last day of vacation came, I felt sad. It had been a wonderful holiday and I dreaded going back to school.

  My aunt, grandmother, and mother went out shopping. Freddie came over shortly after they left. He was carrying a large, crumpled brown paper bag. Freddie held out both arms and pushed the bag into my hands.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Open it,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”

  I looked in the bag and then up at Freddie. In the bag were Freddie’s toy soldiers.

  “What?” I said.

  “It’s for you,” he said.

  “But they’re yours,” I said, astonished.

  “No, I want you to have them,” he said, and he ran out of the door, slamming it behind him, not staying to play.

  I just looked at the door, not understanding why Freddie didn’t stay to play. Finally, I sat down on the floor and poured out the contents of the bag. Then I counted. Two hundred. All two hundred. Tanks, jeeps, guns, soldiers, everything.

  I put each soldier in place, lining them up as Freddie had taught me to do. I organized them into the good guys and the bad guys. I put the kneeling men with their guns on the front line. Then I began. “Bang, bang. Vroom, vroom. Chuggle, chuggle.” But it was no use. They just didn’t come to life without Freddie. I sat for the longest time, just staring at the soldiers, missing Freddie.

  When my mother returned, she glanced at the soldiers, all neatly lined up on the floor, and asked, “Where’s Freddie?” The natural question. “I know he must be nearby.” She smiled and pointed, “The soldiers …”

  After all, Freddie and his soldiers were one.

  “He’s not here,” I said.

  She looked at me, puzzled.

  “Freddie gave me all his soldiers. He wants me to have them.”

  My mother gasped. I remember that. She gasped.

  “You can’t take them,” she said. “Freddie loves those soldiers. You have to give them back.”

  I knew she was right. They were Freddie’s. But something in me wanted to hold onto them. My mother must have sensed that in my expression.

  “I have an idea,” she said. “Give Freddie his soldiers, but you keep one.” She waited.

  Of course! It was the most brilliant idea I had ever heard. I could keep one!

  “Okay!” I said, flooded with relief, as I suspect my mother was also.

  “I’ll go over and speak to Freddie’s mother,” she said. I was further relieved that I wasn’t alone in this now.

  My mother returned after about ten minutes. “I’m going to tell you something,” she said, “but you must promise not to tell Freddie.”

  I nodded. I loved it when my mother confided in me.

 
“Freddie has been crying for hours,” she said. “He misses his soldiers but he told his mother he wouldn’t ask for them back. He wants you to have them.”

  My heart sunk. I felt so awful that I hurt inside. I had made Freddie, my best friend Freddie, cry.

  “You’ve got to give the soldiers back to Freddie. Tell him you love them and want them more than anything but you want him to have them.”

  I put the soldiers back into the crumpled brown paper bag, one by one, careful not to damage any of his treasure. I took my mother’s hand and the bag, and we went over and rang Freddie’s bell. Freddie’s mother answered and called for Freddie. He came to the door, his eyes red and puffy from crying. I said nothing.

  Then, “Freddie, I can’t keep these. I love them more than anything but you love them more and they’re yours.”

  Freddie didn’t look happy. Rather, he looked crestfallen. Then I understood.

  “But I’d like to keep one. This one,” I said as I reached into my pocket and pulled out a soldier. “Meet Sergeant Freddie!”

  Freddie’s face lit up.

  “Can I keep him?” I asked tentatively.

  Freddie nodded enthusiastically. “That’s a great idea!” he said, reaching out and accepting the brown bag from me. Then he poured out 199 soldiers and began to set them up.

  “Can she stay awhile?” He looked up at my mother.

  “For just a few minutes,” my mother answered, smiling. “We have to catch the six o’clock train.”

  I dropped down on the floor and began playing, watching Freddie bring the soldiers back to life again. It was magic.

  On the train ride home, my mother and I sat together, behind my grandparents. We were both very quiet. “Do you have the soldier?” my mother asked. “You mean Sergeant Freddie,” I corrected and pulled him out of my pocket. “See? He’s right here. I’m taking Freddie back to New York, and I’m going to keep him by my bed. I’m going to keep him forever, Mommy. Forever.”

  My mother touched my face gently. There were tears in her eyes. At the time I didn’t understand why, because I felt good inside. Very, very good.

  Pat Gallant is a fourth-generation native New Yorker and mother of a son. Awarded a New Century Writer’s Award in 1999 and again in 2002, her writing has been published in Saturday Evening Post, Writer’s Digest, New Press Literary Quarterly, and several anthologies.

  Simply Magic

  By Barbara L. David

  IT’S DARK. The black sky sparkles with the brilliant light of distant stars. It’s cold. And the laughter and chatter of excited anticipation make puffs of smoke with every joyful breath. Everyone is happy: Mom, Dad, and all five kids — ages eleven months to seven years. We’ve just come from Christmas Eve Mass and look forward to a delicious dinner.

  Okay, it’s really McDonald’s. But the drive-through isn’t too crowded and the servers actually get our order right. We sit down to our meal. Carols play softly. The Christmas tree glows. Fries by candlelight. The evening flies.

  It’s nearly bedtime.

  “Mom, the cookies!” Our daughter’s voice conveys an urgency suggesting Santa’s imminent starvation should we fail to supply cookies.

  I open the Tupperware, and she carefully arranges cookies on a decorative paper plate. Her fastidious attention to the plate’s palette of color, shape, and flavor create a delicious opportunity for the baby. While our culinary artist considers how an additional chocolate chip or sugar sprinkle cookie will affect the composition of Santa’s snack, our sly baby makes his move. His tiny, chubby fingers cling to the table’s edge. Stealthily, he pulls himself up. In the twitch of a reindeer nose, the baby grabs a cookie, drops to his bottom, and crawls away with cheetah-like speed.

  “Mom!” shrieks our little girl.

  I scoop up the baby as he gums his sugary catch. “Don’t worry. I’ll put him to bed.”

  I take him and his two-year-old brother up the stairs. Neither really protests; they’re tired after a busy day of play. As our daughter finishes her cookie masterpiece, our middle son, who has trouble with certain consonants, studies it critically.

  “What if Hanta gets hursty?” he asks.

  Our oldest considers the problem and then searches for pencil and paper. He touches the eraser to his lips, leans toward the paper, and with purposeful determination begins: Dear Santa, he prints carefully, forming each letter to his second-grade teacher’s exact specifications.

  “What are you writing?” his ever-curious sister asks.

  “Shh! I have to concentrate.” He continues: The milk is in the — Panic strikes. “Dad, Dad. How do you spell ‘fridge’?”

  My husband pauses as he sweeps French fries. “R-e — ”

  “How can ‘fridge’ start with an r?” our phonetically aware daughter interrupts. “Fridge. F-r-ig. F-r-ig. I think it’s an f.”

  “Well, it’s really called a refrigerator,” my husband says as he sweeps up a fry mixed mysteriously with pine needles.

  “Re-frig-er-a-tor. Re-frigerator,” repeats our little girl.

  Our son’s pencil hits the table with impatience. “How do you spell it?”

  “R-,” says our girl, “e-”

  “No!” protests our insulted second-grader. “Dad!”

  “I was only trying to help,” pouts our wounded first-grader.

  My husband begins, “R-e — got that?”

  “F-r-i-d” — he dumps the dustpan of fries — “-g-e-r-a-t-o-r.”

  “Got it.” Our writer thinks, then adds, Thank you for coming.

  Everyone present signs the note after the word Love. My husband forges the babies’ names.

  I come down the steps and announce bedtime. They’re willing tonight, even eager, but first they want to check Santa’s progress one last time. We log onto the Internet and go to NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Com-mand. From its North Canadian post, this government organization tracks Santa’s sleigh and reindeer as they depart the North Pole and travel around the world. We reach the site and an up-to-the-minute report begins. An official voice announces that right now Santa is leaving Rio de Janeiro. We watch the video showing his sleigh flying gracefully around the Christ the Redeemer monument and heading toward the United States. NORAD projects that Santa’s arrival time in our hometown will be around midnight.

  “He’s coming! He’s coming!” they cheer.

  “Come on. It’s time for bed,” I say.

  There’s no argument tonight. They all run up the stairs. I follow slowly to make sure they brush their teeth and say their prayers. They know they must go to sleep. Santa won’t come until they’re asleep. But it’s hard to sleep. It’s impossible to sleep. It’s all too wonderful. Tomorrow is Christmas. Tomorrow! A glance out the window. Then a long stare. The flashing red light on the radio tower — it’s … Could it be? I want to believe it, too. But if it is Rudolf, they must go to sleep. Now. Santa’s coming.

  A mad dash of little sock feet and quick leaps into bed. Covers pulled warmly about them and a moment of silence. Suddenly, quiet.

  Then a little voice asks, “Do you hear Santa yet?”

  “Shh.”

  “I think I hear him!”

  “Shh!”

  Giggles and laughter and quiet whispers and whispers that get louder, and then “Shh.” Again and again. But finally the “shh” lasts. It’s quiet, and it stays quiet.

  Sleep. And then a sound. It’s late or early, the middle of the night. I’m awakened and I make the mom rounds, checking on the kids. The babies are sleeping soundly, curled up in their cribs, their little bottoms skyward. My next little guy is oddly arranged with most of his body avoiding the soft mattress, seeking the hard plastic of his racecar bed. I pull the blanket around my daughter on the bottom bunk, and as I look toward the top one, my oldest pops his head up
.

  “Did you hear that, Mom?”

  “You have to go to sleep.”

  “I think it was Santa.”

  “Go to sleep. I love you.”

  “Can we check, Mom?”

  “Check?”

  His sparkling eyes and innocent belief win my heart. What’s a few more lost moments of sleep? In just one or maybe two more years, a rooftop noise on Christmas Eve might make him merely roll over. For the moment, whatever woke us holds the promise of childhood magic.

  “Okay, but we won’t go down. We’ll only peek from the steps.”

  He springs from his bed, not a bit tired.

  “Shh,” I say.

  “Oh, okay.” And he begins an exaggerated tiptoe out the door and into the hall.

  I take his hand as we creep down the steps. My own heart pounds with excitement. One, two, three … from about the sixth step we can see. Just a night light burns. The tree is not lit. The room is mostly dark, but somehow the shadows shine. I watch my little boy, his eyes wide, his smile broad. He glows with awe and happiness.

  “All those presents… . Look! Look at the stockings… . Mommy! Mom, he ate the cookies. He ate the cookies.”

  “Shh.” But I’m even happier.

  We hug with happiness. We sit on the steps and linger in this wonderful night. But it’s very late, or very early, and we must get some sleep.