Christmas Dinner, Christmas Spirit

By Tammy Ruggles

ALMOST 4:30. Quitting time at Social Services. My coworkers were already gathering their coats and gloves and heading out to clear snow from their windshields so they could get home to finish last-minute shopping and spend Christmas Eve with their loved ones. I was sacking up the Christmas dinner I’d bought from the deli. With the hectic schedule of a single mother, a fast turkey dinner was better than none at all for my four-year-old son and me. I had wrapped presents for Joey in the trunk of my car and a brand-new Chipmunks Christmas CD and portable player for him in my purse. I was ready to rock out the Christmas vacation with Joey and the Chipmunks and spend some leisure time at home with my rambunctious boy.

Just then, at 4:30 on the dot, the phone rang. Everyone else had left, and I could have ignored it. After all, it was quitting time, officially. And it was the start of Christmas vacation. So no one would have been the wiser had I just slinked out the back door and gone to my car.

But I’d have known, and it was the guilty pang that made me lift the receiver. We were Social Services, and it was probably an emergency.

“Hi, Tammy? This is the sheriff. We got a phone call from old Miss Mabel. She called and said she needed someone to drop off her prescription.”

I groaned inwardly. They call this an emergency? Don’t they know we do investigations? Emergency-type things? And it’s Christmas, for Pete’s sake! I should be home dancing around the living room with my son to the Chipmunks. Eating that good turkey dinner and putting presents under the sparkly tree.

Why can’t you drop it off? I wanted to ask. Or get a deputy to? Why do I have to do something that even one of her neighbors could do?

It wasn’t like Mabel’s house was on my way home. She lived ten miles in the opposite direction. And it really wasn’t my duty. I didn’t have to do it. Delivering prescriptions to clients did not appear on our job descriptions.

But I found myself, for whatever nutty reason, saying, “Okay, I’ll do it.”

Grumbling, I hung up the phone, swung on my coat, picked up my turkey dinner, and left the office, locking up behind me.

After picking up the medication at the pharmacy, I proceeded up the two-lane country road to Miss Mabel’s. The curvy road was downright treacherous with the wet snow covering it.

Mabel lived alone. Her family lived out of the area and rarely visited. She could be cranky and demanding. She had the police department and community services hopping to meet her every whim.

Well, I’d give her what for. Didn’t she realize we had lives, too? Families? Holidays? My job already took so much time away from my son, Joey.

Her house was small and unkempt because she stubbornly insisted on doing her own household chores rather than letting Senior Services do them. She used a walker, and her balance was poor, yet she managed to bathe herself and cook and clean, in a marginal way.

As I pulled into her gravel driveway and carried her medicine to the front door, her house not only looked untidy, it seemed downright sad. No Christmas lights adorned her porch. No decorated tree blinked in her window. No wreath hung on her door.

“Miss Mabel!” I called as I knocked on the door. “I have your medicine!”

I waited for an answer. She was hard of hearing, so I raised my voice.

“Miss Mabel! I have your medicine!”

I heard her knocking around inside. Having been acquainted with her for years, I knew she was getting her walker and making her way to the door.

Sometimes I wondered why she just didn’t go to a rest home. I’d spoken to her several times about it. She would have companionship, supervision, round-the-clock health care, security. But she would have none of it. And since she was competent, she could choose to live where and how she wanted to. I sort of admired her spunk. I’m not so sure I’d want a social worker barging in and telling me where I needed to go.

“Terry!”

She always got my name wrong. Sometimes she called me Tabby, sometimes Tara, sometimes Tanya. But it was okay. I knew she recognized me.

“Thank you so much!” she cried as she took the medicine from me. “Won’t you come in?”

“Oh, no, I can’t. I need to get home. My son is waiting for me.”

“Just for a minute,” she said, reaching for my coat sleeve.

She practically dragged me inside, so I went.

“Do you have everything you need?” I asked her. “Gas in the tank? Water not frozen? Groceries?”

“Oh, I’m fine. The grocery boy brought my supplies today. Come on in and sit down.”

“No, really. I should get going.”

She smiled, and tears suddenly came to her eyes. “Your little boy, right?”

I nodded.

“I had a little boy. Who grew into a big boy. Who now lives in Canada.”

I nodded. “George, right?”

“You remember!”

“Well …” I shrugged. She talked about him all the time. How could I forget?

I looked around her living room. So drab and unfestive. No Christmas cards, no Christmas cookies, no decorations, no candy canes.

“What are you doing for the holidays?” I asked. “Is George coming to see you?”

“He can’t. He got laid off and can’t afford to travel. He called me, though.”

I nodded again. But this time I couldn’t leave. Not like this. Not with her standing so alone in the middle of her living room.

“Do you have turkey?” I asked her.

“Why, no, I don’t. Why?”

“Well …”

Gosh, I should be on my way home. I should be home with my little boy, handing him presents for the tree. We should be laughing to the silly Chipmunk songs. Or playing in the snow.

“How about we eat Christmas dinner together? I’ll take you to my house and bring you back later this evening?”

“No, I don’t want to go out. It’s too cold. And I’m afraid I might fall.”

She had a point. And I could get in big-time trouble for taking a client to my home.

“How about I bring Christmas dinner to you then?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll be right back.”

She watched eagerly at the front door as I trekked through the mounting snow to my car.

Please, Joey. Forgive Mommy this one time for being late for the holidays. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.

I packed in our Christmas dinner, figuring I could get more for Joey and me on my way home, a Christmas card, even the Chipmunks CD and portable player. Spying her big potted plant in the corner, I moved it in front of her window and draped it in Christmas lights.

“Tasha! How beautiful!”

We laughed and ate deli turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, rolls, and pie at her kitchen table. She talked about George, and I talked about Joey. I didn’t do it to be a martyr; I did it because it felt like the right thing to do. There was no way I could have gone to sleep that night with the image of that forlorn old woman standing by herself in her Christmas-less house.

When I left, she kissed my cheek at the door.

“Thank you. Merry Christmas, Tammy.”

Tammy Ruggles lives in the small rural town of Tollesboro, Kentucky, and is the single mother of a teenage son. In 2001, she had to retire from her job as a social worker when she became legally blind, but is enjoying a second career as a freelance writer.