The house was quiet. My older brother and I were out of school that day and we had a plan. Momma was at work, and we had the house to ourselves.
I coaxed my brother out of bed with an omelet that Paul Bunyan himself couldn't have eaten. Finally, after a ridiculous amount of poking and prodding, and eventually threatening, he followed me down to the basement.
Within half an hour, Momma's kitchen was a disaster. Dusty boxes littered the floor, and various pieces of Christmas decorations were scattered all over the table and counter. The entire room was covered with a veil of dust and glitter.
But even the mess was beautiful.
After a long struggle, we finally remembered how to assemble the tree, and by that time, my brother had decided that Christmas was better off without all the fuss of the decorations. I told him I didn't need him anymore, the Scrooge, so he surrendered himself to the Nintendo 64 in his room.
I continued. My nose was running and I couldn't stop sneezing, but somehow, neither really bothered me. I was drinking in the moment, welcoming the approaching season, begging it to last longer this year. I battled the string of lights and never once got aggravated that only half of them worked at a time. It was Christmas, and I was doing something beautiful for my mother. Between battling a job, housework, and extended family issues, this was one thing she wasn't going to have to worry about.
Momma had one little Christmas house. When I was little, I thought it was the neatest thing. I loved to turn on the little night light inside and imagine the happy little people who lived there. Momma had told me how my Aunt Mary had given it to her years ago. I remember thinking about Jesus' mother Mary, and I treasured the little house as if Mary herself had given it to our family. As I pulled it out of its box that day, I was ecstatic to see it again. Christmas had come at last, and I was welcoming it into our home.
I checked the clock. She would be home shortly after 1:30. I needed to hurry.
I cleared the mantle and spread the garland across it. I hung our stockings, all six of them, on the mantle. I found a tiny one that was supposed to be a tree ornament and hung it up, too. It would represent my new brother-in-law who had joined our family since the year before. Momma would love the little stocking. My brother-in-law wouldn't. Perfect!
I employed my brother's help again and together, we hung the lights around the front door. Things were coming together beautifully. I looked at the clock again. I had only a few minutes left.
Promising my brother chocolate chip cookies, I persuaded him to take the empty boxes back to the basement. I remember him being upset that I hadn't started on them when he came back upstairs. I would get to his cookies, but first, I had to finish my surprise for Momma. There was very little left to do, but very, very little time left to do it.
I dashed through the house. I hung what few Christmas cards we'd already received across the beam in the kitchen. I made sure the lights in the wreath over the mantle were turned on. One last check of the tree...and it looked fabulous. My sister might have even approved of it, and it would have taken her at least twice as long to do it.
A flash of sunlight reflected across the living room as Momma's old tank of a car pulled into the driveway. I tossed a few more boxes out of sight. The tree was on, and both halves of the lights were working for a change. The skirt was smooth and even. The stockings were all as I'd left them. The mantle was perfect and the lights mingled with the garland glowed, as did the wreath above the mantle. The entertainment center looked fabulous. Momma was going to be thrilled.
My eyes scanned the room one last time, and by chance I noticed Momma's little Christmas house. Somehow, I had forgotten to turn it on. I reached behind the end table and fumbled with the switch on the cord. I heard Momma's footsteps as they climbed the front steps. The cord was stuck on something, and I could almost reach it...
CRASH!!
The door opened and Momma walked into my worst nightmare. Her beautiful Christmas house lay in a million shards on the hardwood floor.
I raised my eyes to look at her and saw pure disappointment on her face.
Inwardly, I kicked myself as tears welled my eyes.
She never said anything as she retrieved the broom and dustpan. I reached out to take it from her, but she pushed past me and began sweeping up the mess. She sighed as she tossed the shards into a paper bag. That was all I could take.
I escaped to my room and shared my tears with my pillow. I had such good intentions for the day. I wanted to do something special for my mother, and all I'd managed to do was destroy her holiday. I should have waited for that evening and worked on it all with her instead of trying to do it all myself.
That night, Momma stopped me while I fixed the glasses for supper. "Thank you for decorating the house for me," she said.
I could tell she was forcing herself to say it. "You're welcome," I said as I fought my tears again.
We sat in the living room while my dad watched something deathly boring on PBS. I tried to appreciate the decorations that I'd labored over, but I couldn't. It just wasn't the same.
When we put the decorations away that year, Momma reused the box that the little house had come in. She filled it with ornaments and the box went back to the basement to collect another year's worth of dust. Every year, when we pulled the decorations out, I was reminded anew of the day I ruined Momma's Christmas forever.
A couple of weeks after I got married, I was out yard saling with my mother-in-law. We'd been at it all day, and frankly, I'd had more than enough of what had turned out to be junk tours instead of yard sales. I waited in the car while my mother-in-law looked through tables and tables of worthless junk. My future sister-in-law sat beside me, and we were deep in conversation. By chance, I happened to notice a lady leaving the sale and returning to her car. Her arms were stacked high with porcelain houses, and amidst the chaos of a village in her arms was Momma's beautiful Christmas house.
I jumped out of the car with my purse in my hand. I'm sure I must have terrified the lady as I approached her. My enthusiasm must have been overwhelming. I couldn't stop the tears that pooled in my eyes as I told her the story. She listened to me, smiling sweetly. I opened her trunk for her and helped her unload her purchases into the back of her car.
Without thinking to ask what she paid for the house, I offered to pay her double for it.
I knew she was going to deny me. I knew there was no way she was going to let me break up her set of houses. I knew I was going to remember that day for the rest of my life.
"No, no, no," she said, and my heart sank to my shoes. I was right. She wasn't going to do it.
"I don't want anything for it." She held the house out to me and waved away my bills with the other hand. "You helped me get my things in my car and I'm pretty sure I would have broken one of those things if you hadn't. Who know? It could have even been the one you're wanting. Go ahead and take it. And I hope your mother enjoys it."
Normally, I'm not the kind of person who hugs strangers because I'm not the kind of person who enjoys being hugged by strangers, but I was ready to name my future children after that lady. I wrapped my arms around her and thanked her as fiercely as I knew how.
As Christmas approached that year, me and my sister went over to Momma's house to help her with the decorations. When I walked in the door with a gift bag, Momma looked at me curiously. I handed it to her and told her to open it. I couldn't wait to see her face!
She pulled back the tissue paper and I watched her intently as her eyes rested on the house inside the bag. She looked up at me without taking it out. And then, she said four little words that I've never forgotten.
"I already have this."
I was in shock. "No, you don't," I said. "I broke it. Remember?"
"Did you?" she asked, obvious doubt clouding her expression. "Last year? I don't remember that."
What a cruel joke, Mom! "No, like six years ago! Remember I put up all of the decorations for you while you were at work? And then when you got home, I broke the house?"
Sheeplishly, she chuckled. "No, I don't remember that."
For years, I had carried the burden that I had ruined my mother's favorite thing about Christmas. I had barely been able to face her knowing the pain I'd caused her. Despite all of its glory, Christmas had lost part of its magic for me because of my memories of the past.
And my mother, the one I felt that I'd hurt so badly, had forgotten all about it.
After a while of talking about it, it slowly came back to her. She told me that she had only been upset to walk in and see the mess that I'd made with the breakfast dishes that I'd neglected to clean up in my excitement, the layer of dust and glitter all over everything in the house, and the huge mess of broken porcelain in the living room. She had only been disappointed to come home and find she had more work to do.
"I had forgotten all about the house," she said, "but I never forgot how you decorated for me that year."
Every year since then, Momma's Christmas house has been a reminder to me. In our lives, we face so many things, and at times, it's the bad things that seem to catch our attention, but years from now, when we look back on our lives, it will be the good things we remember. The broken shards of our own Christmas houses may cloud the moment for a time, but the beauty of the moment will be restored in our memories.
So relish this season, my friends. If you are faced with broken Christmas houses this year, do your best not to dwell on them. When you look back at this time in your life, by God's grace you'll not remember the pieces, but instead, you'll remember His peace.
Merry Christmas to you all.
