I have so many wonderful Christmas memories, but what happened on one particular night is my favorite. Most of the young people who were also there are parents now, some even grandparents. And I bet that they remember it, too.
It was three days before Christmas. There was a foot and a half of snow on the ground and it was bitterly cold.
“Too cold to snow,” someone said, so at least we had that going for us.
We were a somber group of about a dozen Shelter Island Youth Center teens and four chaperones, brought together for an evening of caroling to shut-ins.
I had little hope that singing carols would put me in the Christmas spirit. So far nothing had. Not the shopping or the lights or even the cute kindergarteners performing at the Christmas concert. I knew the Christmas spirit was out there, I just hadn’t found it. And I wasn’t the only one.
On the way to our first house all of us, young and old, talked about how it just didn’t feel like Christmas. There was way more “Bah humbug!” than Christmas spirit in our van that night, but we were willing to fake it for a couple of hours.
That Last House
By the time we drove to our final stop, all of us were tired, cold and totally fa-la-la’ed out. The list we’d been given added a few details. This was the home of an elderly gentleman whose wife had suffered a stroke. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who thought, “Okay people, Home stretch! Let’s get this over with!”
The couple lived at the top of a steep hill and the driveway was so icy we had to park on the road and get up to the house on foot. None of us could walk on the driveway. We had to crunch-lunge our way through the knee-deep snow. We talked about just skipping this last house.
Unfortunately, the man had been called and warned of our arrival. The outside of his house was all lit up. He was expecting us. We made it, some of us by crawling on all fours. At the other homes we stayed outside and sang, but the man was at the door when we arrived, and insisted we come inside. Snow-covered or not.
He led us to the living room where his wife waited. I was concerned about clumps of ice on oriental carpets and water stains on the wood floors. But this man did not care about the carpets or the floors. He wanted us to stand where his wife could see us. So we gathered in the corner of their living room while the man stood across from us, right next to his wife who sat completely motionless and expressionless in a wheelchair. I remember that she had a small red and green plaid bow in her hair.
A Special Audience
As soon as we started to sing, the man moved his hand in the air, as though he was conducting us. As he waved his invisible baton, he sang right along with us, too.
Normally our frozen group zipped through three songs — first verse only — and bolted for the van. Five minutes, max. But for this audience we stayed, singing every Christmas song we knew and humming our way through several we didn’t.
When we started Silent Night the man stepped even closer to his wife and placed his free hand on her shoulder. Though the woman had not moved or changed expression, tears ran down her cheeks. Her husband had tears in his eyes, too, but he continued to smile and sing and wave his imaginary baton.
In order to keep singing I had to look away from the tender scene, at some spot on the ceiling. But I was aware of the sudden sniffles around me. I could detect the motions of snowy mittens brushing away tears and hear the breaks in the voices of the dozen teenagers who struggled to keep singing through throats that had lumps in them.
When the man led us back to the door he tried to give the kids money, which they refused. He said he wanted to give them something for all our trouble. One of the girls said the carols were a Christmas present.
“You have given us the best present,” he said. Then he shook our hands and wished each of us a Merry Christmas.
Back in the van, on the way to the parish hall for cookies and hot chocolate, the adults were silent, but the kids talked in whispers. They liked the man and they were pretty sure that his wife could hear us. One of the boys said he was coming back the next day to shovel the drive and clear away the ice. A few others said they’d help.
Then we were all quiet, lost in our own thoughts for the rest of the ride.
As it turned out, we didn’t find the Christmas spirit that cold night. It found us.
Merry Christmas!
