It wasn’t an ordinary house, though. You know, the kind with a slanted roof and four walls. There were no gumdrops on the roof (pretty sure I still had some of those stuck in my teeth from when I was a kid) or marshmallow snowmen in the yard. This was a gingerbread gazebo, a replica of the one it was currently sitting in. The cupola on the roof was covered in white and dusted with sugar and had some kind of light inside to make it glow.
Garland draped the roof, red bows adorned each arch, and there was a tree in the center. The stairs leading up to the entrance were flanked with nutcrackers, and I didn’t even try to guess what she’d made those out of.
The entire creation sparkled and glowed, and as others gathered around to ooh and ahh, it became clear this would likely be the high-ticket item of this year’s auction.
As I stood there admiring the gingerbread creation, people were already filling out the bid sheet on a clipboard beside it. Not even fifteen minutes on display, and it was already up to one hundred and fifty dollars.
“There you are,” a familiar voice called out. I turned to see Mom approaching the gazebo with two paper cups in her hands.
I met her at the bottom of the stairs as she looked me over and shook her head. “Where’s your hot cocoa?” she asked even as she pushed one of the cups into my palm. “I knew you wouldn’t have any.”
“Then why’d you ask where it was?” I wondered.
“Such a bah humbug,” she uttered, gesturing for me to take a drink.
I did as any dutiful son would and smiled as I swallowed. “Happy now?” I asked while all I could think about was ten years ago when I’d had hot chocolate on the night of the mistletoe raising.
“I’ll be happy when you hang our ornament on the tree,” she said, pulling a pair of hammered gold bells tied together with a piece of jute rope and one of her homemade red velvet bows on top.
“You haven’t already hung it?” I asked, mildly surprised.
Usually, she was down here first thing.
“That’s your job,” she said, gesturing for me to take the bells.
“I cut the tree down, drove it over here, and set it up.” I reminded her. And I did it all for free.
“Don’t sass your mother,” she rebuked. “You’re taller than me. All the low spots are already taken.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I muttered, taking the bells.
Leaning up, she patted my cheek. “While you do that, I’ll go look at all the auction items and get my bids in.”
“You aren’t going to help me?”
Pursing her lips, she glanced toward the gazebo and then shook her head once. “Not this year,” she confirmed and went up the stairs, pausing long enough to say, “Drink your cocoa before it’s cold. I stood in line a long time for that.”
“I didn’t ask you to,” I muttered.
“I heard that!”
Of course she did. She couldn’t hang an ornament, but she had the ears of a bat. After a fortifying sip of the rich chocolate, I spun and went back up the stairs to the tree to find a place for the bells.
I had no idea what the town did with the ornaments people left on the tree each year, and it made me wonder if there were boxes upon boxes of them in the basement of the town hall. Hopefully, they got donated or something. Maybe people bought them back at the yard sale the town sponsored every summer.
I never shopped then. We had our own booth with maple syrup and maple candy, so I wasn’t sure what everyone else sold.
I did a lap around the impressive Douglas fir—nothing wrong with admiring the fruits of my labor—and then scanned the branches for a place to hang the ornament. Mom was right. The entire lower half of the tree was already jam-packed. Probably because most people let their kids hang the ornaments, and kids were, well, short.
I paused in front of a handmade Santa ornament, his beard made of wool and his red hat of plaid flannel. The fur around the hat and at the end was soft and slightly aged-looking, wire-rim glasses sat perched on his nose, and his cheeks were pink.I usually didn’t pay much attention to all the ornaments or decorations. I mean, to be honest, they were the same every year. Tradition was tradition, after all. Plus, the older I got, the less magic Christmas seemed to hold. It felt more like going through the motions, keeping up appearances, and doing my job as a Christmas tree farmer. So it was very rare when something like an ornament made me pause.
But there was something about it. Something nostalgic, something warm… magic.
And for a moment, I remembered. The ache of it was bittersweet, something that hummed in the center of my chest. How it felt to believe and hope. The crackle of a fire and the soft weight of a blanket while snow hushed the night. The excitement of finding gifts beneath a tree, watching people you love open them and smile. It almost made me homesick, but for what, I wasn’t sure because I was home. I never left. The yearning was there, though. A quiet bruise I didn’t know was there until I touched it. Even as it ached, I didn’t shy away because the feeling was sentimental and reminiscent of love.
Without thinking, I reached out to finger the ornament that somehow captured everything I’d forgotten. The wool was soft but dense as my thumb stroked it.
The clearing of a throat brought the world around me back into focus, but I clung to that feeling for just another moment, reluctant to let it slip away.Feels like meeting with a long-lost friend again.
