Sunday stretched out long, silent and then dark as the power failed in the afternoon. Ethel insisted on returning to the carriage house so that she could watch over her home during the bad weather, but she promised to return once the conditions cleared. The Howard sisters’ five guests spent the day quietly, either resting in their candlelit rooms or sitting around the inn, pretending to read but mostly staring out of the windows at the storm.
Laura and Allan kept to their rooms, while Edwina sat in the parlor by a storm lamp and knitted a tiny, striped afghan for the grandchild she would not be able to see. Ted seemed to wander in and out of the rooms like a restless ghost, while Max silently watched over the fireplaces and kept them well-stocked with wood.
Louise had insisted that all three sisters give the visitors some time to adjust to the idea of being at Grace Chapel Inn for the holidays.
“We should just go about our normal daily routine while they acclimate to their situation,” she told her sisters. “I know they’ll come around when it gets closer to Christmas.”
Alice had volunteered to prepare lunch so that Louise and Jane could go to work on decorating the parlor. Unpacking the box of decorations made Louise quickly forget about their unhappy situation, as the contents included Madeleine Howard’s collection of wooden Christmas toys, given to her by her parents each year in her stocking.
Louise smiled as she took out one of the old, wooden jumping jacks that their mother had treasured. “This was her favorite, remember? The purple one with the yellow hat.”
“I loved making that jack jump.” Jane’s eyes got a faraway look in them. “I thought it was much more fun to play with than those silly Darcey dolls Santa kept leaving for me.”
“You were doll-resistant,” Louise agreed. “Of course, Darcey couldn’t do jumping jacks.”
“Sure she could,” Jane said, giving her a slow smile. “With a little wire and some fine tuning of her limbs, which popped right out of the joint sockets, by the way.”
“I don’t think I want to hear any more,” Louise said, noticing that Edwina had stopped knitting and was listening to their conversation.
“You were always a soft touch for dolls, big sister.”
“While you were like a wild child with them.” She sighed. “I was too old to have a Darcey doll when they came out, but I would have liked one when I was a girl. I was very fond of the Darceys I bought for you and Cynthia.”
Her youngest sister laughed. “Then I shouldn’t tell you about when and where I took Darcey deep-sea diving.”
“Deep-Sea-Diving Darcey?” A chuckle escaped Edwina. “I don’t remember that version.”
“Well, there actually wasn’t an official deep-sea-diving version. I put Luau-Lovely Darcey through extensive marine training.” Jane’s eyes sparkled. “Guess what I used for a pool.”
“I don’t think you want to hear this, Edwina,” Louise warned. “She was the kind of child who could make the straightest hair curl.”
“You had Darcey dolls, didn’t you, Edwina?” When she nodded, Jane asked, “Didn’t you take them on adventures?”
“What she means is, did you scalp them, drown them or try to send them to the moon on a rocket launcher?” Louise translated.
“It was not a rocket launcher,” Jane said. “It was a firecracker.”
“Which I can verify does not make Darcey fly when you strap it to her back and light it,” Louise added. “We had a very nice memorial service for her, however.”
Now the schoolteacher laughed. “You must have been a handful, Jane. I’m afraid I was not quite as adventurous myself.” She looked down at the little afghan that she was making. “You know, I learned to knit so that I could make clothes for my Darceys. My Aunt Margaret taught me one winter when she was staying with us.”
“You do knit beautifully.” Jane paused to admire her work. “Louise tried to teach me, but the yarn kept snarling into knots.”
“No, you tied it into knots, as I recall,” Louise said. “That was the year you wanted to become a pirate, or maybe it was the year you wanted to be a cowgirl and herd cattle at a ranch in Montana. I can’t remember which.”
Jane dug into the box and took out a red stocking, which had several large holes in it. “Oh rats! Or, more likely, moths. I wanted to hang them up this year, like we did when we were girls. Just for decoration.”
“Let me see.” Edwina came over to examine the damage. “You could patch them, but they wouldn’t look the same.”
“It’s okay.” Jane shrugged. “It was a silly idea anyway.”
“I don’t think it was. My parents always made a fuss about preparing our stockings.” Edwina sighed. “I miss that—waking up Christmas morning and hurrying to see what Santa had left in my stocking. It was so exciting, pulling one thing after another out of it until I reached the toe. The best gift was always at the very bottom.”
“I have some yarn,” Louise said, sounding thoughtful. “Maybe I could knit up a few stockings before Christmas.”
“With all we have to do around here?” Jane shook her head. “It’s not that important.”
“Yes, it is,” Edwina insisted. “I could make a few, if I could borrow some yarn. I don’t have any Christmas colors with me.”
“I have my knitting bag in the study, right next to the brown armchair.” Louise smiled. “Please, help yourself to whatever you like.”
“I’ll go look at it now. I’ve never made a stocking pattern before, but it shouldn’t be that hard. I could make one for everyone.” Edwina hesitated. “Would you have some little things we could put in them as gifts for the others? I’ll pay for them.”
Jane nodded. “We’d be happy to provide them. We can’t have empty stockings on Christmas morning. Perhaps we’ll talk about paying at another time.”
“That would be wonderful.” Beaming, Edwina departed for the study.
“You know, that is the happiest I have seen her since the group came here.” Louise looked down at the box of decorations. “What did Ted love about Christmas as a child, I wonder.”
“I don’t know,” Jane admitted. A slow smile appeared on her face. “But we’re going to find out, aren’t we?”
“I think a little reminiscing about childhood could be just the thing. Remember how much everyone enjoyed talking about their favorite family recipes for the holidays over dinner last night? Our guests will not mind if we ask them to contribute something to our decorations or holiday preparations by recreating one of their favorite Christmas memories.” Louise tapped a finger against her cheek. “Those memories never make us sad. They are part of the magic of Christmas.”
“Very sneaky, big sister,” Jane said, “As long as no one has a treasured childhood memory of building a ten-foot, red-and-green Tyrannosaurus Rex and having it attack the tree.”
“I’ll check with Ted, but I think we are safe from that.” She frowned. “Do you think it will work? Reminding them of their childhood Christmases?”
Edwina hurried back into the parlor. “Do you have Miss Reed’s phone number?” she asked. “If I could call her, I’m sure she’d be willing to share her stocking pattern with me. I can simply enlarge it to make the stockings people-sized instead of cat-sized.”
“That would work,” Jane said and gave her older sister a big smile.
Alice had doubted Louise’s idea at first, but seeing how happy Edwina was as she began knitting stockings for everyone had convinced her to give it a try. When she had gone up to check on Allan, who was still quite miserable, she had told him the story about Jane’s buying the gingerbread men for the children at the bakery in town and mentioned her own favorite childhood memory of decorating sugar cookies with her father.
“My mother would make a big gingerbread house every year,” Allan told her. My brother and I always helped her decorate them with cookies and candy when we were little, but as we got older she would bake the gingerbread and let us design and build the houses ourselves.”
“Is this tradition responsible for your love of architecture?” Alice asked. “Or were you just interested in snitching bits of the building materials?”
Allan laughed. “Both, I believe.”
“I do love gingerbread houses, but I’ve never made one,” Alice said. “Our father was not much of a baker.”
“They’re not difficult at all. The trick is to make the sheets of gingerbread very thin, and cut the pieces out while the gingerbread is still warm and soft from the oven. The recipes for the gingerbread and the white icing that acts like plaster for it are in any standard cookbook.” He sat up and reached for his sketchpad. “I could draw up what pieces you need to cut out of the gingerbread. There’s one I made when I was a teenager that looked like a real log cabin.”
In view of Alice’s success with Allan, Jane had decided to try Louise’s idea with Laura, who emerged from her room the next morning looking wan and asking if the sisters had any aspirin. When she returned with some from her room, Jane mentioned Allan’s idea about the gingerbread house and also hinted that making candy might be a good idea.
Laura seemed momentarily lost in thought. “My grandmother was from Maine and she hated store-bought candy. She said the chemical dyes in it always made them taste bitter.”
“She never let you have candy?” Jane asked, surprised.
“Not anything you could buy at a store. She made candy for me out of maple syrup and snow.” Laura’s thin lips uncrimped a little. “If you have some pure maple syrup and a candy thermometer, I think I could make a soft version of it.”
“What’s the snow for?” Jane asked.
“To cool it and make it harden. You boil the syrup until it reaches a certain temperature and then you pour it on snow.” She gestured with her hands. “We would make big pans of it and fight over the best pieces. We ate sour pickles in between.” She saw the look Jane gave her. “You can’t eat maple sugar candy without breaking it up with something sour. It’s a tradition.”
Sour pickles and maple candy? “I’d love to try it. Why not use today to plan your candy production. I’ll guarantee you kitchen time tomorrow for your specialty.” Jane hoped that she had enough antacid on hand for the upset stomachs that combination would produce.
Ted had already gotten involved in Allan’s gingerbread house project before Alice or Jane could ask him about his favorite childhood memory, which left Max. Alice decided to ask him that night after dinner, when they were clearing the table.
“Waffles,” he said at once.
“What sort of waffles?”
“Any kind my mother made. She had about a hundred different variations, but on Christmas morning she always made real Belgian waffles. She would let me pour the batter over the waffle iron and watch it to make sure it wouldn’t burn. I taught my wife that recipe when we got married.” He cleared his throat and murmured something else.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“My favorite kind when I was a boy were when Mother made waffle men,” Max said, and two flags of red color appeared on his cheekbones. “If you pour the batter a certain way, you can make waffles shaped like people. I used to put blueberries in the batter to make faces for them.”
“Would you make some of the waffle men for us tomorrow morning?” Alice asked. “I know I’d love to try them.”
Max nodded. “If you’ve got a waffle iron, I can make you a whole army of them.”
The storm clouds slowly dwindled until they finally cleared on Tuesday at dawn. They left behind a porcelain blue sky and five-foot drifts of dense, alabaster snow. When Alice walked out onto the front porch, it seemed as if the world had been wrapped in white mink, sprinkled with diamond dust and presented as a gift of dazzling perfection.
The stirring up of childhood memories over the past couple of days had affected their guests even more than Louise had expected. Some of the excitement of being a child at Christmas returned as they sought to recapture something that had mattered to them years before. As a result, the five people staying at Grace Chapel Inn had undergone rather amazing transformations.
Alice found it heartwarming as well that each of the memories connected their guests to something they had shared with and learned from a beloved family member: Edwina’s aunt teaching her to knit, Laura’s grandmother making homemade candy, Allan’s mother building gingerbread houses.
It wasn’t surprising, however. Alice knew that it was family who made the holidays special, and she treasured how her father and sisters had created many wonderful memories for her. I only hope that I can do the same for my sisters.
“Good morning, Alice,” Edwina said as she came downstairs carrying her knitting bag. “I almost have the last one finished.” She held up two long needles, and the red-and-white striped stocking attached to them. “Thanks to Louise for her gift of yarn, we’ll be able to hang up one for everyone by Christmas Eve.”
“I wish Viola could see these.” Alice admired her neat handiwork. “Do you think you could make one for Wendell?”
“I already have.” The schoolteacher reached into her bag and pulled out a smaller version of the stocking, this one with a white mouse worked into the red stitching. “Miss Reed made me promise that I would when she gave me the pattern over the phone.”
The two women walked into the dining room, where Ted Venson was having breakfast with Allan Hansford. Both men were discussing the house plans Allan had drawn on a sheet of paper between them on the table, but they paused to greet Alice and Edwina.
“How are you doing with the building plans?” Edwina asked, peering over Ted’s shoulder at the design. “Oh my. Should you apply to the zoning commission before you build that?”
“No, but we are rethinking the hot tub and the guest cottage out back,” Allan teased back.
“We’ve got all of our materials together,” Ted told her. “As soon as we’re finished with the breakfast dishes we’re going to start construction.”
The schoolteacher laughed. “We’ll have to look for some Lincoln Logs next.”
Alice studied the older man’s face. “Are you feeling up to doing this, Allan?”
“I haven’t had so much as a sniffle since last night.” He looked over as Jane came out of the kitchen carrying a tray. “Now if I can just tear myself away from these Belgian waffles.”
“You men ate all the Belgian ones. These are blueberry,” her younger sister told him as she placed a new stack of golden-brown waffles on the table. She paused for a moment to pick up the empty juice pitcher. “We have a new pot of coffee brewing, but the teapot on the table is full.” She went back into the kitchen.
Alice left Edwina at the table and went in to see if Jane needed any help, only to find her talking to Max, who was scowling at the stove.
“It hates me.” He showed her a slightly too-brown waffle. “See?”
“It’s a gas stove, Max. You just have to get used to it.” Jane reached down and lowered the flame a fraction. “You’re doing great.”
“I’m scorching things.”
“You are not. Besides, we can use the extra crispy ones for dessert tonight.” She looked over at Alice. “Did you see Laura? She was going outside to get some snow.”
“She must have gone out back.” Alice looked over as the kitchen door opened and the interior decorator came in carrying two tin pie plates filled with white, fluffy snow. “Here she is.”
“This had better be as good as I remember it,” Laura said as she put aside the pans in order to slip out of her coat and mittens. “I think my ears have turned to ice.” She glared at Max. “Have you been watching the candy thermometer, like I told you to?”
“Yes, and it’s distracting from my waffles.”
“Move aside, you big old grouch.” Laura casually nudged him aside and peered at the glass thermometer clipped to the side of a pot filled with a brown, bubbling mixture. “There, that’s perfect.” She used a pot holder to remove the pan from the stove and brought it over to the two pie plates of snow. “Now, if I can just do it the way Grandmother did.”
Laura carefully poured the mixture over the snow in thin scrolls, which instantly solidified and turned a pale brown.
“So far, so good,” Jane said, peering at the pans.
Laura set the pan aside. “I still have to test it.” She took a toothpick and gently prodded the mixture. “That’s it. We have real maple sugar candy.” She began transferring the scrolls from the pans onto wax paper.
Alice congratulated her, and Jane gave her a one-armed hug. Max reached for a piece of the candy, only to earn a tap on the back of his hand from Laura.
“No candy for breakfast,” she said and gave him another nudge. “Go sit down and eat. I’ll finish the rest of the waffles.”
“I can do that, Laura,” Jane said. “Go have a cup of tea and check out Allan’s house plan. He and Ted are ready to start putting it together.”
“Yes, and if we don’t watch them, they might build a replica of Philadelphia’s city hall, complete with William Penn’s statue on top,” Alice warned, making everyone chuckle.
Alice waited until their guests had returned to the dining room before she released the laugh she had been holding. “Extra-crispy waffles for dessert?”
“With a liberal amount of ice cream, strategically applied.” Her younger sister grinned. “They hold up better.”
“I can’t believe how well this is working out.” Alice shook her head and sat down for a moment at the little kitchen table. “I certainly never expected to see Max cooking or Laura making candy.”
“There’s a kid inside everyone,” Jane reminded her. “Convincing them to let their inner child come out and play was a stroke of genius.”