A Christmas Message from Patricia Semack- Ritter

A Christmas Message

by Patricia Semack Ritter

My father was a very talented man, an artist with wood. He loved the way it smelled when freshly cut and found beauty in every knot and grain.

When he retired he had more time to enjoy his hobby of wood working. A friend of his suggested he could made a few extra dollars making Old World Santas and slieghs out of wood to sell at a local shop. They were a big hit!

One year for Christmas he gave all of us a Santa and Sliegh as a special gift. We had our choice of colors. I picked a traditional Santa with a green coat and little red bird perched on his sack. My sister-in-law wanted blue and white. Each one unique in design.

With each passing Christmas my Santa would be unwrapped with care and placed on a table or shelf until New Years Day. Then with a sigh I would wrap him up and say goodbye until the following day after Thanksgiving.

When my father passed away we were asked by my mother to place a special message in my father's urn. Some of my siblings wrote a letter but I chose my little red bird. I wanted my father to take a little piece of Christmas with him.

The following year I opened the box with my green coated Santa sad to see the little red bird missing. I knew that Christmas would forever be a little less merry without my father. We all missed him terribly.

It was my turn to have our traditional family Christmas Eve that year. Everyone brought a dish and a small exchange gift. My sister-in-law had one for me. When I opened the little box I could not believe my eyes. In it laying on a tuft of cotton was a small red wooden bird. She said it was in the box with her Blue and White Santa. I know for a fact that she didn't paint her own blue bird red because she still had it in place on her Santa a few days after Christmas.

Think what you will, but I believe my little red bird came back to me. Now when I look at my green coated Santa I smile and have a Merry Christmas. I remember my father with love and believe he is somehow still a part of our traditional Christmas Eve.