Despite the lack of electricity, buoyant spirits prevailed through Christmas Eve morning, as everyone pitched in to add something special to the holiday preparations. Snow fell, not as it had before, but prettily over Acorn Hill.
Allan and Ted unveiled the gingerbread house at breakfast by placing it as the centerpiece for the table. Two miniature stories of rich, dark gingerbread, exactly cut and assembled to look like Viola Reed’s Queen Anne home, rose from drifts of white-icing snow. Cookies, candies and pretzels formed the trim and house details. The crowning touch was the foil-wrapped chocolate Santa Claus going down the sugar wafer chimney.
Edwina’s ten knitted stockings—one for each guest, each of the Howards, their aunt and a small one for Wendell—hung waiting on the mantel in the parlor. She had personalized each with different combinations of stitches and yarns. She had even embroidered a set of initials on the cuff of each one to identify its owner.
Laura had made enough maple-sugar candy for everyone, and after being encouraged by Jane, tried recreating some of her grandmother’s other homemade candies. She also showed Max how adding a bit of maple sugar to his coffee gave it a rich, mellow sweetness that, in her opinion, ordinary table sugar could not provide. Beaming, she promised everyone a surprise for Christmas Eve dinner.
The guests also insisted on taking turns in the kitchen with preparing meals, which allowed Louise, Alice and Jane time to finish working on their own gifts for their guests, along with the treats that Edwina had suggested.
“We can’t have them wake up to empty stockings on Christmas morning,” Louise had said. “Not after all they have done to contribute to our holiday.”
Since the deep snow had kept the Howard sisters from going shopping, they decided to follow their guests’ examples and make do with homemade gifts. Jane had packed five pretty boxes with her fancy angelight cookies, and tagged them with cards listing the recipes for a dish she had made that each guest had particularly enjoyed.
Alice had taken pint-sized plastic berry baskets and filled them with an assortment of tea bags and flavored instant coffee packets. Over the years she and her father had amassed a large collection of holiday coffee mugs, and she picked five of her most cheerful for the baskets.
Louise had used old sheet music to wrap five picture frames, which she had also personalized for each guest with his or her family name written down one side of the frame in fine calligraphy, using metallic-gold ink. She had also made up five small packets of photos from those she had taken of Grace Chapel Inn and the sights of Acorn Hill. She had intended to send many of the pictures to Cynthia, but she could make more from the negatives after the holidays.
I will have to convince my daughter to take some time off from that hectic job of hers to come for a visit soon, Louise thought as she put away the negatives in her room. She missed Cynthia most acutely during the holidays, which unfortunately were always a busy time for her daughter’s publishing company. Still, she had her sisters and her memories. I should tell the guests about the Christmas when Cynthia gave Eliot her chicken pox.
It was Jane, and the memory of Cynthia’s unfortunately timed bout with chicken pox, that made Louise recall another photograph, one she hadn’t thought of in years.
Did I save it? She had tried not to think about that time very often, but enough years had passed now that she felt a pang of longing to see the photo again.
Louise went to her closet and took down the box in which she kept her old school memorabilia and sorted through it until she found her first photo album. She sat down on the bed with it and began looking through the pages, smiling at the youthful photos of herself. At last she came to the section that she had made from the time when she was a sophomore in high school.
That had been a terrible year for the Howards. Her mother Madeleine had passed away after Jane’s birth, and Daniel had had to cope with shattering grief and a new baby all at once. Louise always remembered the Christmas of that year, which might have been the saddest of her life.
On one page Louise had written a Bible verse, Ecclesiastes 7:14, which a friend of her mother’s had read at Madeleine’s memorial service: “When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other.”
That verse had perplexed her for weeks after her mother’s death, until Jane had started to change from a helpless newborn into a very active infant. It had been that change that had drawn Louise out of her grief more than anything else, for seeing Jane’s bright eyes and happy smile, and hearing her sweet laughter and cooing gurgles had made it impossible to be sad.
I wonder if you will ever know how much you meant to us, she thought as she gazed at one photo in particular. You were like a gift from God, sent to remind us that even in death, there is life.
“Louise?” Alice was standing outside her open door.
Feeling too emotional to speak, Louise gestured for her sister to come in and carefully removed the photograph from the paper tabs at the corners. Without a word she handed it to her sister.
For a long moment Alice simply looked at the photo too. Then she gave Louise a beautiful smile. “I completely forgot about this. Has Jane ever seen it?”
“I don’t think I ever showed it to her.” Louise gazed up at her middle sister. “I want to frame it and give it as my Christmas gift for her, Alice. What do you think?”
Alice gave her older sister a hug. “It’s perfect.”
During a break in the weather, a snowy Ethel Buckley arrived for afternoon tea. Once she had brushed off and warmed up, she slipped out of the kitchen and brought a cardboard box into the reception area, where Alice was doing some last-minute gift wrapping.
“Jane said you were in here.” She looked at the berry boxes, which Alice had wrapped up in tulle and topped with raffia-straw bows. “That has such a nice country look to it.”
Alice grinned and then sniffed the air. “Do I smell peaches?”
“You do. I’ve been doing a little baking.” Ethel set the box down on the desk and opened it. “Thank goodness for gas stoves. Have you heard when the power might be restored?”
“Tonight, if we’re lucky. Oh, how cute.” Alice admired the little beaded angel ornaments her aunt had produced.
“Carol Matthews showed us how to make these at my last craft exchange.” Ethel placed six of them on the desk. “There’s one for your tree and one for each of your guests.”
“We’ll put them in the stockings tonight.” Alice peered into the box, which held several dozen of her aunt’s blue-ribbon-winning peach tarts, wrapped up in neat bundles with colorful cellophane. “Do I get some of those tarts?”
“If you’ve been a good girl, yes,” Ethel said. “I made up a few for you and your sisters, and some for your guests too.”
Alice was touched. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Nonsense. Kept me busy during the storm.” Ethel made a shooing gesture. “I had planned on making them for Lloyd—you know how much he loves them—but I can always whip up another batch after he shakes his flu bug.”
“Thank you, Aunt. I know they’ll enjoy them.” Alice checked her watch. “You’re staying for dinner, aren’t you? Pastor Thompson will be giving his Christmas sermon at seven tonight. I thought we would gather everyone together in Father’s study after dinner to listen to it.” She made a mental note to check the batteries in the radio, in the event that the power was not restored.
Ethel chuckled softly. “I haven’t spent an evening listening to the radio since I was a girl.” The sound of laughter made her turn her head and glance back through the door. “Things are a lot more cheerful around here. You’d have never known it a few days ago.”
“Ted and Allan have everyone in the dining room working on decorating gingerbread men.” Alice smiled. “Laura insisted they make some of them gingerbread women.”
Ethel’s eyebrows rose. “Aren’t they a bit old for that?”
“I hope not. I want to make a couple of gingerbread innkeepers myself.” Alice picked up the box. “Let’s put these in the kitchen.”
Just then, however, the phone rang. Alice picked up the receiver. “Happy Holidays from Grace Chapel Inn, Alice Howard speaking, may I help you?”
“I need to speak to Jane Howard,” an unfamiliar man’s voice said.
At the same time, there was a click on the line. “I’ve got it, Alice,” Jane said over the kitchen extension. “Thanks.”
“Okay.” Alice hung up the phone and gave it a quizzical look. The man did not sound like anyone she knew.
“Who was that?”
“I don’t know. Someone asking for Jane.”
Jane waited until she heard a click on the other end before she spoke again. “I’m so glad you called. I was afraid you had gotten stranded somewhere.”
“I was, for a time. I’m trying to find a way out there.” The man’s voice hesitated. “If you think I’m still welcome.”
“Of course you are.” She smiled as Louise walked in. “Is there anything you need me to do? Should I say something?”
“No. If I can’t make it, then …” he cleared his throat. “I’ll try another time.”
“All right. Call me and let me know. I’ll talk to you soon.” Jane hung up the phone. “Did you all run out of candy?”
“Not yet, but Allan wants some powdered sugar for the shrubbery.” Louise glanced at the telephone. “Who was that who called?”
“Just a friend.” Jane didn’t want to spoil her biggest surprise for Christmas.
“I was hoping that the power would be restored by now.” Her older sister brought out a box of 4-X sugar from the pantry and hesitated, as if she were making up her mind about something. “Jane, you don’t feel overwhelmed by all that’s going on in your kitchen, do you?”
That startled her a little. “No. Why would you think that?”
Louise set the box on the counter. “It is just that you seem to be contributing so much to your guests—and to your sisters.”
“You really worry about me too much, big sister. I’m fine and nothing is going to ruin our Christmas.” She made a face. “That already hasn’t happened, I mean.”
“We’re together.” Louise came over and took hold of her hands. “That is the only gift that I wanted.”
She smiled. “Me too.”
Jane had wanted to make Christmas Eve dinner a cooperative effort, carrying over the idea of sharing with each other the happy memories of their childhood.
Six cooks were five too many for her kitchen, however, so she had everyone take turns that afternoon preparing a side dish to go with the baked capons that she had planned for the evening meal.
Laura was the last to work on her contribution to dinner. “Do you think everyone will like this?”
Jane grinned as she opened the oven door to check the capons. “No one ever minds having two desserts.”
“My grandfather never did,” Laura said. She smiled a little. “He had a horrendous sweet tooth. I think that’s why Grandma loved to make candy and kept big jars of it in her kitchen year-round.”
“Did you ever visit them in Maine?”
Laura shook her head. “Not very often. My mother couldn’t stand the farm. She left home after school and never wanted to go back. As I got older, the only time I saw my grandparents was when they came to visit us. Grandma made the trip every year, and when Grandpa got too old to handle the long drive, they would come down on the bus.”
“Did your mother have the resources to visit them for the holidays?”
A humorless laugh escaped her. “My mother married very well, several times, and always had more than enough money. We had a housekeeper and a cook, and I had a nanny. Even so, whenever Grandma would visit, she would insist on making Christmas dinner herself.”
“It sounds like they loved you a lot.”
The younger woman shrugged. “They probably came to see me just to spite my mother. I think they knew she was ashamed of them.” She looked down into the mixing bowl. “I never was, though—no matter what Mother said about them. They were married for fifty-three years. Can you imagine, being with the same man for that long?”
“If he was the right man, yes.”
“Well, I’ve never found a man like that.” Laura’s voice changed. “My grandmother spent her whole life with him. After Grandpa passed away, she came down on the bus for one last visit. She went home and died alone a few weeks later.”
Jane felt her heart constrict. “That must have been so hard for you.”
Laura shook her head. “I was glad she went to be with him. I was just a kid, but somehow I knew that she couldn’t live without him.”
But you felt abandoned, Jane thought, because she was more of a mother to you than the woman who gave birth to you. All at once she felt as if she understood what drove Laura a little better.
“We lost our father recently,” she told the younger woman. “Whenever I feel sad, I try to think of him being reunited with our mother.”
“I don’t know why it still bothers me.” She stared blindly at the window. “Grandma never had a job, never left the farm except to see me and never spent a day away from my grandfather. The only time I ever saw her without him was that last visit.”
“Being a devoted wife is nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Not according to my mother,” Laura said bitterly. “She always said that men are only good for one thing—alimony. She’s the reason I’ve never gotten married.” She made a disgusted sound. “And now I’ve become just like her. Cold, obsessed with money, and indifferent to anyone’s feelings but my own.”
“You don’t have to be like her,” Jane said. “You can be whoever you want to be.”
“I wanted to be like my grandmother. My mother thought her parents’ life was contemptible because they didn’t have much money or a fancy house.” Laura suddenly thumped down the spoon in her hand. “She was wrong. My grandmother didn’t need those things. She was the happiest woman in the world.”
“Everyone should do what makes her happy,” Jane said. “Not what someone else expects. But it’s hard to find the courage to do that.” She had certainly struggled with it herself.
“Maybe it’s just easier to go along with what your parents and your friends expect of you.” The younger woman grabbed a paper towel and wiped up the spill she’d made. “But my grandmother never did anything the easy way.”
“I guess you have to look at the results and decide if they were worth it.” Jane picked up the glass jar of maple candy that Laura had made and took it over to set it on the counter beside her. “Like this candy she taught you to make. It’s not fancy and you’d never find it in a store.”
“But it’s made with love.” Laura touched the jar. “You can’t buy what comes from the heart.”
Phone calls from the guests’ family members began coming in just before dinner, but this time the conversations were much happier. The five guests kept them brief, too, so that all would have a chance to use the phone and wish their loved ones a Merry Christmas.
Jane had brought out Madeleine’s good china, since they always used it for holiday dinners, and drafted Max to help her with serving the different dishes everyone had made.
Louise had everyone join hands and she said the blessing. “Father in heaven, we thank You for this wonderful meal and the hands that helped to make it. Your blessings have brought new friends to our home and new joy to our hearts. Guide us forever with the light of Your word and the love of Your spirit, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Jane’s savory capons came out delightfully tender and Edwina’s twice-baked sweet potatoes, topped with ground pecans and a touch of nutmeg, and Ted’s vegetable platter looked wonderful.
Ted refused to take full credit for his colorful contribution, however. “If it wasn’t for Jane and her skill with a garnish knife,” he said, gesturing toward the raw vegetables cut into frills, flowers and other fanciful shapes, “I might have chopped everything into sticks.”
Allan made everyone laugh by explaining his reasons for making the pitcher of minted iced tea. “My wife has forbidden me to do anything in the kitchen but boil water, and only then with direct supervision,” he told the group. “I think it was the fifth pot I scorched that made the kitchen permanently out of bounds for me.”
After dinner, Jane urged Max to remain seated while she brought out his leftover waffles, which she had steamed and rolled around vanilla ice cream speckled with maraschino cherries.
“You’ve done enough for one night.” She turned to the interior decorator. “Would you mind bringing in your dish, Laura?”
Laura looked slightly embarrassed as she carried in the dessert she had made, and everyone around the table stared at the tower of orange-glazed baked puffs, stacked together to form a Christmas tree and draped with a web of delicate strands of spun sugar and stars cut from fresh citrus slices.
“This is a Maine orange tree,” she told them. “At least, that’s what my grandmother called it.”
“That is the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen,” Edwina breathed.
“I always liked it when I was a little girl,” the interior decorator said simply as she set the platter in the center of the table. She couldn’t hide her flush of pleasure, though, and the look she gave Jane spoke volumes.
After dessert the sisters, along with Ethel and their guests, gathered in Daniel Howard’s study to listen to Pastor Thompson’s Christmas Eve radio sermon.
“I wish the celebration at Grace Chapel hadn’t been canceled,” Alice said as she sat down beside Louise. “We have a candlelight service every year and the choir sings so beautifully.”
“We spent all that time decorating the church this year too,” her aunt said, looking faintly disgruntled.
“Yes, but we’re warm, happy and surrounded by friends,” Jane said as she went over to tune in the station. “This is the next best thing to being there.”
After playing several Christmas carols, the radio announcer came on and introduced Rev. Thompson.
“Good evening, friends.” Although he was being relayed by telephone, the pastor’s voice came over the radio clearly, as if he were standing at the radio station and speaking into the microphone. “The recent bad weather has made it impossible for us to be together in the flesh, but that is not an unusual thing for Christians. Throughout history, we have had to carry our faith with us, wherever we go and whenever we are separated from those we love. You could say that by now, we’re almost used to it.”
“He sounds wonderful,” Ethel whispered. “Just like a professional.”
“Tonight, Christians all over the world are celebrating the most holy night of the year. We come together on this night to worship and pray, and to thank Almighty God for the gift that He made to the world, the gift of Jesus Christ, our Savior. We come together now, in spirit, to offer up our love and our gratitude to God, for bringing the light of salvation into the world through Jesus Christ.
“We all know the story and yet we never tire of hearing it. I’d like to tell you the story again, from the book of Luke, chapter two ‘In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register.
“ ‘So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.’”
Max rose unexpectedly and left the room.
“‘And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”‘”
Louise, who was sitting beside Jane, put her arm around her youngest sister.
“‘Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”
“‘When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.
“‘But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.’”
Alice blinked back the tears that hearing the beloved Bible verses always brought to her eyes.
“Those words speak of a birth that happened two thousand years ago,” Rev. Thompson said. “It was a supreme moment, a moment when the greatest love of all time was shown to mankind. My dear friends, as Christmas is upon us, let us tell this story to our families and our children and our friends. Tell them of what happened on this night, so very long ago in the town of Bethlehem. A town whose very name means ‘the House of Bread.’ Jesus would later say of Himself, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty’ [John 6:35].
“We are accustomed to going out during this season to share our joy with others. But joy is not simply the consequence of celebrations and gift-giving. Joy comes from Almighty God, the source of all happiness. When you feel joy, the light of heaven is illuminating your heart.
“For the many who have been separated by circumstance from their loved ones, I pray that you will look in your heart for joy. The love of God makes all things simple, and transforms our pain into peace. If not for the coming of Jesus Christ, we might never have known how much love God has for us, His children. We truly would have been left alone and cold and hungry. Let us pray together now.”
Jane bowed her head, but just before she closed her eyes, she saw Max slip silently back into the room.
“Dear Father in heaven, You have filled our lives with countless blessings, and our hearts with peace and love. We thank You for this wonderful season and for the gifts it brings to us, but most importantly, we thank You for the birth of Your Son, Jesus Christ, who was Your gift to the world. Help us to follow His teachings and find our way through the darkness. Give us the strength to find joy wherever we are, safe in the knowledge that we are loved by You. Remind us that no matter where we are, that we are never, ever alone. Through the glory that is Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.”
“Amen,” echoed around the room.
Alice looked over to see Max surreptitiously wipe his eyes, and she closed her own in a moment of private entreaty. Please, Lord, bring joy back into this man’s life. Show him the path of peace and help him reconcile with his son. That is the only gift I want this year.
Louise ushered everyone into the parlor, where she played classic Christmas carols on the piano for their guests. Alice and Jane brought out eggnog and cookies, and encouraged the guests to sing.
“You don’t want me to,” Jane warned them. “The good crystal might not survive the experience.”
Laura and Edwina were coerced into singing a duet of “Walking in a Winter Wonderland,” which they performed beautifully: Laura had a surprisingly sweet soprano voice, which harmonized wonderfully with Edwina’s contralto.
Ted obliged the group with a brief and rather comical rendition of “Deck the Halls,” as he could not remember all the words and had to be prompted. That was followed by Allan, who got them all singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
Max walked up to the piano when they reached day twelve and asked Louise something in a low voice. She nodded, and after she finished the last verse Max stood next to the piano.
Alice noticed that he was scowling again and for a moment feared that the fact that he had received no phone calls had made him revert back to his former, melancholy detachment.
“I haven’t done this in ten years or better,” he told them in a very gruff voice. “But this song was my wife’s favorite Christmas carol, and I would like to sing it in her memory.”
Max then sang “Silent Night” in his deep baritone. Everyone grew still as they listened to the solemn carol, which was performed carefully and with great affection.
Silent night, holy night,
Son of God, love’s pure light;
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus Lord, at Thy birth
Jesus Lord, at Thy birth.
Alice sighed as the deep emotion in the man’s voice seemed to vibrate in her bones. It was the perfect ending to the evening.
Since it was growing late, Jane walked Ethel back to the carriage house, while Alice and Edwina tidied up the parlor. When she returned, the mantel clock struck midnight and everyone exchanged heartfelt wishes for a Merry Christmas before retiring for the evening.
It had been a lovely Christmas Eve, Alice decided as she went out to turn down the lamps in the front of the house. She was surprised to see Aunt Ethel’s Christmas candle glowing on a table that had been set by one of the front windows, sending out the aroma of peppermint.
Max came out of the kitchen and noticed her standing by the window.
“I put that there a little earlier,” he told her. “My wife would always keep a candle in the window on Christmas Eve.”
“I meant to do that myself, but I forgot about it.” She looked out into the darkness. “It’s so cold. I hope there is no one out there traveling tonight.”
“There is,” Max told her, “but I think Jesus Christ knows His way around.”