C1 SATURDAY, DEC. 24, 2016 PARK RAPIDS ENTERPRISE
Every year entrants in the annual Park Rapids Enterprise Christmas story contest share their gift of writing. Some inspire, others make us laugh. Grab a cup of cocoa, find a comfortable chair and enjoy this mix of creative fiction, personal essay and memoir.
Memories on a Christmas bird’s wings By Sue Bruns Bemidji
My sister will be getting a bird ornament for Christmas this year. She won’t be surprised when she opens the box; I’ve given her bird ornaments for the past several years. It’s not so much the gift as the memories it awakens. Mom loved birds. She loved to watch the birds, feed the birds, collect little bird figurines. Over the years, she kept a few parakeets, but mostly she loved the wild birds, especially cardinals, robins, and hummingbirds. Dad sometimes bought her little porcelain birds that she kept on the
window ledge above the kitchen sink. Every December, Mom brought down boxes of Christmas ornaments from the attic and carefully unwrapped several bird ornaments. I don’t know where they came from. They seemed very old to me. They were fragile and ornate and all of them had real feathers for tails. Their feet were clips to hold them to the tree branches. The bird ornaments were my favorites, and when I was old enough to place them on the tree, I was very careful – never hanging them too close to the edge of a branch where they might slide off and shatter or too low on the tree, where a dog’s tail might brush them off. After I moved away, Mom reclaimed the bird
‘Tis the season By Steve Maanum Park Rapids
Do you remember a magical childhood Christmas? What made it so special? When I was in first grade, our teacher asked us to draw a picture of a gift we wanted for Christmas. I did my best to draw a pair of cowboy boots that I had seen in the Montgomery Wards Christmas catalog. They were black with orange, yellow, and blue tear drop shapes on the sides. I already had my cowboy hat, vest, chaps, and six-shooter. All I needed was a pair of cowboy boots to complete my Roy Rogers transformation. We handed in our drawings and our teacher put them in an envelope that was addressed to Santa Claus at the North Pole. If I ever had any doubts as to how Santa could travel the
world and visit every home in a single night, they were erased when, on Christmas morning, I opened a box containing the exact cowboy boots I had drawn in class weeks before. At that moment, I was a true believer in the ‘magic of the season.’ During that Christmas vacation, I was introduced to another holiday custom. Between Christmas and New Years, we attended a family gathering at Millie and Claremont’s farm. Shortly after supper, we were startled by the loud banging on windows and doors. My sister and I ran to mom and dad for protection while they just laughed. They informed us that everything was fine. It was just Christmas Fools, a Norwegian custom called
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ornament job. I was a new mother when Mom got cancer. She and Dad lived alone in the big house where my brother, my sister and I had grown up. Dad took care of her, tending her like a small, injured bird. He learned the household chores she’d always done and made sure she was as comfortable as possible. When the cancer finally took her, he was exhausted, lost and empty. We three kids and our families floundered through the first year of holidays like baby birds fallen from a nest. We weren’t sure where to go, how to keep traditions and family together while our new, little families grew and took us on different seasonal migrations. We always included Dad
in our holidays, but he seemed incomplete without Mom. The first Christmas after she died, Dad brought down the ornaments from the attic and unwrapped them carefully. His job had always been to put the tree securely in the stand and string the lights. He had never taken part in the hanging of ornaments, since that task was left to Mom and us kids. I wasn’t there when he opened the box of bird ornaments, but I imagine the ache of love and loneliness he must have felt after 45
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Best Christmas ever...but not for Charles By Viola Shepard Park Rapids
Editor’s Note: Viola dictated this story to Ken Shepard. It’s a true story. It was 1927. Papa was a coal miner in a small town in southern Illinois. There were 10 in our family, and money was scarce. Momma worked hard in the garden and the kitchen, and we had enough to eat, but there was nothing left over for extras. A typical birthday for me was getting three gifts: a handmade dress, a paper doll, and strawberry
shortcake for dessert. We went to church every week, and on Christmas Day in 1927, we had the Christmas program after Sunday School. I almost certainly had a piece to recite, but I don’t remember reciting it. I also don’t remember whether or not Sister Bach was at church that morning, but she wasn’t. When we got home, the double doors to the living room were slightly open, and we saw that the living room was full of Christmas presents! Sister Bach had brought them while we were at
church, and Papa had helped her fill the room with them. I ran to the crack between the double sliding doors and saw nothing but a blur of color and a big tricycle. I couldn’t believe my eyes! I ran back to my only brother Charles, who was two years older than I was, and said, “You got a tricycle, Charles!” I was really excited for him, and he went straight to the tricycle when the doors were opened. As the only boy, he was sure the tricycle was for him, but when he got to it he found a tag that said, “To
Viola.” He couldn’t believe it! I couldn’t believe it! He kept saying that it had to be his tricycle, but there was my name in big letters. Girls in our family didn’t even get meat at meals. That was reserved for Papa and Charles. But someone cared enough about me to buy me a big tricycle. My sevenyear-old brain could hardly comprehend that. I had that tricycle many years and put a lot of miles on it. But it was Charles who wore it out, as he rode it
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