I learned the lyrics to “The Twelve Days of Christmas” carol as a kid in grammar school choir, when the magic of the holiday season still filled me with a sense of wonder and possibility, a dreams-come-true mentality. Partridges and pear trees, ladies dancing and leaping lords—I had thought the words of the tune farcical. I didn’t know then that the key to happiness was hidden within its silly stanzas.
I had spent my life grasping at those five golden rings: a husband, three healthy children, and a comfortable home. Then just before Christmas in 1999, my beloved husband died in the night, and I realized my gold was fragile as glass.
We were shattered.
I found no comfort or joy in the approaching holidays, only memories that cut at my heart like broken pieces of a treasured Christmas ornament.
I stopped singing. It hurt even to breathe. I wanted to banish the holidays from our lives. But then something extraordinary happened. Thirteen days before Christmas, gifts began appearing at my home. They were just small tokens of the holiday season, accompanied by a card with lines similar to the carol. Each was signed simply, “Your true friends.” At first, I resisted the intrusion of Christmas into my grief. But slowly, as the gifts kept arriving, my heart began to thaw. The gifts made my children smile, got us talking, as we tried to identify the source of our mysterious presents. They were teaching us how to function as a family again.
The romantic in me would like to believe a miracle touched my family that Christmas, and in a way that is true. But I know that the miracle was the way a small act of kindness saved my family and brought us back to each other. Years later, the magic of the holiday season is still colored by the light that those friends shone into our lives. Thinking of what a powerful impact those anonymous gifts made on my family has changed the way I see the holidays—not just as an excuse to give and receive presents with my loved ones, but as a time when it is more important than ever to step outside of my own world and consider those around me, to open my heart, reach out my hand, and engage. The holidays are a time to rejoice, to remember, to reflect on seasons past, and to celebrate our memories. This book is about finding a way to honor those who cannot be with us this sea- son, to create new and joyful memories, to experience this season of giving in a very special way.
My holiday preparations always began in mid-November with a floor-to-ceiling scrub of everything in the house, a tradition of my mom’s that I adopted. Our first Christmas together, Rick had volunteered to help before he realized how extensive the work was actually going to be.
“Nobody’s going to notice if you don’t vacuum under the bed,” he had complained two days into our Christmas cleaning. “Who cares about dust on the top of the chandelier that can only be seen if you’re seven feet tall?”
After a weekend of scrubbing floors, cleaning toilets, de-cobwebbing light fixtures, washing down walls, and polishing every wooden surface in the house, Rick labeled me “Christmas crazy.” In future years to avoid participation in the cleanup, he would plan some vital home repair—like replacing the plastic vent on the dryer or changing the batteries on our seven smoke alarms—that simply had to be completed over the holidays. That was fine with me as long as he stayed out of my way. I’d flip on the radio and sing along to Christmas songs while the housework tinted my hands and knees the color of pink poinsettias.
The real Christmas fun began after the cleaning. That’s when I’d drag out the decorations. A Santa figurine dressed in Pilgrim apparel standing next to a turkey, a gift from my sister Carol, was always the first holiday dressing to be displayed. For us, and then later for the kids, his appearance was a sign that a month of holiday fun was about to begin. Thanksgiving was a blur this year, and the little fellow never made it out of the cupboard…
Trying to keep with tradition, I spend most of the day scrubbing floors, washing dishes, and doing lots of laundry. My kids need me to take charge, and I don’t want to let them down any more than I already have. It feels good to do normal things, chores I have done every year to prepare for the holidays since I was a new bride. I appreciate the solitude of the house, the quietness. Instead of feeling lonely and stiff, I feel free to let my mind wander back to happier Christmases and to cry if I want to, without fear of upsetting one of the kids
I’m nearly to the bottom of the laundry pile—I can actually see the floor for the first time in weeks—when I unearth a cache of Rick’s clothing: socks, underwear, the gray-striped shirt he wore the day before he died. The sleeves are still rolled up to the elbows, a necessity because his long arms usually stuck out of his sleeves. I gather the shirt and hold it to my nose, breathing deeply.
The shirt has been sitting on the laundry room floor under wet towels and dirty gym clothes. Any trace of my Rick is gone.
I dump extra laundry detergent into the washer as it fills with hot water and then collect Rick’s clothing. Before I toss in the shirt, a note slips out of pocket. The paper is damp, but a list written in Rick’s perfect block penmanship is legible: “Christmas gifts to buy before surgery—bike for Nick, seat covers for Ben’s car, a Bellbrook warm-up suit for Meg. Nerf guns for everybody.”
Under my name, he has written “This Christmas is going to be special.”
I trace each letter on the page wondering when he wrote the list, and where. The empty washing machine runs through the wash cycle while I read the short missive over and over, committing it to memory. I’d like to think it’s a sign from Rick that he is somehow still with us, but I know it’s just another piece of his unfinished life.
I refold the note and put it back in the shirt pocket, then re-start the washing machine. I stuff Rick’s socks, his underwear, and the shirt into the washer, and I watch, mesmerized, as the hot water begins to rotate. I regret my action almost immediately, but not soon enough to save the note. It is in pieces, like our lives.
Vapor rising from the hot water makes me feel like I’m in a steam room, so I flip the lid closed, but it doesn’t help. I am sweating, and my heart jumps and leaps like it wants out of my chest. I wonder if this is how Rick felt, and I panic. My legs buckle, and I slip to the floor.
“Breathe. Stay calm. Help me, Rick.”
I fall asleep sitting there on the concrete floor, leaning against the washer.
When I wake, the house is quiet, and my heart beats normally. Only the fear remains. The house feels unwelcoming, and I don’t want to be here alone. I run upstairs, slip on my snow boots, grab my car keys and coat. I have to get away.
I drive for three hours, to Cincinnati and back, without getting out of the car.
By Joanne Huist Smith
This is an edited extract from The 13th Gift by Joanne Huist Smith, published by Nero Books
