Ready, or Not--Christmas Comes

By Dave Owen

Celebrating Christmas typically involves love, family, traditions and faith. But when loss and grief get mixed in, there's also the unique challenge of change and of making peace with those changes. Spend the holiday season with Harrison as he figures out his first Christmas without Janice. His is a brief, modern story that will delight and mayb

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ash Grove House Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9780999645383

Book preview

1

DECEMBER 7 - ONE AVOCADO

Harrison placed his avocado on the grocery checkout belt and watched it make a lonely ride to the edge of the scale where the cashier waited.

This it? she asked. She had a charmingly perky and cheerful voice.

If my wife were here, she’d say something like, Why do you ask? Is there a purchase minimum today? He paused, smiled big, but when he noted that she didn’t seem to understand, he quickly retreated. But she’s not here, so yes, that’s it. Just the one avocado.

The cashier still looked confused, which, in turn, left Harrison feeling stupid and embarrassed for trying to be witty. It was clear he’d failed.

Janice’s wickedly sharp response to the girl’s inane question would have been a much better line than he could ever imagine. It would have landed as the perfect zinger and wouldn’t have left the girl confused. In fact, it might have marred the girl’s otherwise fine morning.

His wife had had a way of doing that over the years and over the past three years in particular. She could never resist the temptation to take advantage of a hapless cashier’s wayward question. She had no mercy for hostesses, either. The irritatingly obvious question directed to the two of them walking into a restaurant: Two for dinner? Duh! was her favorite perch from which to pounce.

That’ll be a dollar-thirteen, the girl said, and placed the avocado in a plastic bag.

Thanks, I won’t need the bag, he replied, handing her a five-dollar bill. He’d hoped that she could reuse the bag for the next customer.

She apparently couldn’t, since she removed his avocado, placed it on the little stand by the card reader and tossed his unused bag into her trash bin. So much for environmental awareness.

He smiled, put the change in his pocket, and wished her a Merry Christmas as he turned to leave.

She cocked her head sort of surprised at his comment—as though he must have been the first person this season to tell her Merry Christmas.

It was December seventh. Early—yes, but he’d definitely struck a chord with the girl. She smiled at him and nodded her head, Merry Christmas to you, too. And then, without missing a beat, she asked her next customer if that was everything. Harrison noticed the woman only had a bottle of rosé and a pre-sliced cheese assortment waiting on the belt.

Merry Christmas? he thought to himself as he headed to the door. The greeting had just kind of stumbled out of his subconscious, really. In fact, wishing the cashier a Merry Christmas had caught Harrison off guard, too. He’d been receiving emails proclaiming the joys of Black Friday Special Savings since just before Halloween, so he knew the holiday season had arrived whether he agreed with its early start or not.

And if the emails hadn’t made it clear enough, Thanksgiving with Mel and Daniel had left it front and center on his calendar. Over a slice of store-bought pumpkin pie (with no whipped cream!) his daughter and son-in-law had cautiously asked about his Christmas plans. Have you decided to stay home this year or are you going to travel? Mel had asked. "How are you feeling about Christmas, anyway?" her husband, Daniel, had pried. Are you going to be okay this year—celebrating without Janice? All of the right questions to show they cared but sometimes it still felt too invasive, too personal, to be made over by everyone in the family. He’d begun to recognize that he was getting tired of everyone stepping so cautiously around him, treating him as though he might emotionally implode and self-destruct at any moment.

And then there was the Christmas Compassion Syndrome. People seem to wear compassion on their sleeves this time of year and he wasn’t looking forward to being anyone’s project. Yes, this was going to be his first Christmas without Janice. Nothing was going to change that, but he was determined this new reality was not going to dominate his December.

As he walked out of the store with his avocado clutched in his hand, he couldn’t help sharing his thoughts with his wife. Yes, Janice, Christmas is coming. Christmas. I’m here and you’re not, so we’re just going to have to deal with that, okay?

The two Salvation Army volunteers ringing their bells beside their famous red kettle interrupted his brief conversation with her. He dug out the change from the five-dollar bill and stuffed it in the slot.

Thank you, sir, and Merry Christmas, said one of the bell ringers. His co-worker smiled and nodded concurringly. There were some things about Christmas that seemed reassuringly repetitive, he decided. Like spontaneously putting change in the kettle when you’re out shopping. It felt good and made him feel like he was part of a much larger concept of the Communal Christmas. Perhaps he ought to volunteer as a bell ringer himself this year.

As he stepped off the curb to walk to his car, his thoughts shifted dramatically. Suddenly he was hearing a moog-synthesized version of Carol of the Bells going round-and-round in his head. Christmas music. He immediately knew this sudden earworm was from Janice’s Christmas playlist. To her credit, her eclectic taste in music had created an amazing playlist five or ten years ago. But last fall, after hearing the Mannheim Steamroller’s rendition of Carol of the Bells for the third time since Thanksgiving, he’d suddenly come to dread getting into his wife’s car. Some aspects of Christmas had grown too repetitive and predictable over the years.

Harrison knew he was going to have to reinvent a few things this year. For one, he’d have to figure out how to put things like music back into his Christmas. Maybe he should charge up Janice’s old phone and find her playlist? It would have been so much easier if she hadn’t stubbornly refused to move all her music and playlists into the cloud. But it wasn’t time to refight that battle in his head so he decided to leave rebooting her phone in the maybe category for now.

He could still hear the steady clanging of the bell ringers as he got into his car. Maybe he should get ahold of his friend Jerry when he got home. He volunteered with the Salvation Army every Christmas. Maybe he and I could get partnered up as ringers. It was another item for his maybe list. After all, if it really was Christmas, he was going to have to face it head on.

2

DECEMBER 8 - BUSHWHACKED

Tuesday was a quintessential December day in Texas. The cloudless sky was a perfect tone of blue and Harrison’s flag out front only faintly responded to the occasional puff of breeze. His digital weather station said it was 70 degrees inside and 66 degrees outside. Maybe he should take his coffee and paper out to his patio chair.

How could you not like Texas in December? Janice had asked on a similar day almost a year ago.

I’ve got no complaints, he’d replied. The question had distracted him from the article he was chasing in the Journal, but he decided to add, "although I do