An Old Town Christmas
I’ll never forget the Christmas morning that my mother surprised us children with a 16 foot, Old Town canoe. Forest green, with wooden seats. She lay it out in front of the Christmas tree and filled it with carefully wrapped, colorful presents. The white string lights twinkled in the boughs of the tree, looking very much like the first rays of the sun glinting from east-facing windows. Our cat, Cutty, poked her nose at the unusual fact that there was a canoe parked in the living room and then, unimpressed, lept up into the tree. The tree shook, tipped precariously to the left, and then righted itself. When the last ornament stopped swaying, we all burst into nervous laughter that the tree hadn’t come crashing down on us.
After I had carefully lifted Cutty from the tree, we all took our seats. My mother sat in an armchair and, sighing contentedly, sipped from her coffee mug. My sisters and I plopped down on the hardwood floor and folded our legs beneath us. We hungrily eyed the name tags on the various gifts and parcels, but knew better than to dive in, head first. Instead, we waited for our mother to give us the unspoken signal that the festivities could begin. Typically, the signal was nothing more than a brief nod of the head. But she had taught us that we must first learn to savor the moment. Delay gratification, as it were, and use all of our senses to fully ingest the beauty of a Christmas morning that had been lovingly and painstakingly culled. Haste and rush were fitting for other days; but not, she said, for Christmas morning. So, as obedient daughters who were eager to please, we sat on our hands and waited. Across the room, the burning wood stove crackled and popped. I gazed into its fire red belly until, eventually, my glance wandered out the window.
Outside, the morning stretched her limbs towards a broader daylight. It had snowed heavily the night before - the kind of quilted snow that is dense and wet and almost a lavender shade of blue. The plow trucks had not yet come through and so the street was left unmolested. It looked pure and pristine and the thought suddenly occurred to me that our street was not a street at all, but a wide, slow moving river of hushed, sluggish snow. Perfect for boating.
Maybe, I thought, I could take the Old Town canoe out into this snowy river and quietly paddle past the houses that were still hunched in their Christmas slumber. But first I would have to put on my hat and earmuffs. Slip into the sheep-lined mittens that my mother had bought for me last fall at the Common Ground Country Fair. Then I could drag the canoe across the crusty dunes of snow, bumpity-bump, until I could push it - swoosh! - into the river. Better wear my big rubber boots, too.
Once perched in the canoe, I would go floating lazily down the river. Perhaps I would spy a scarlet cardinal hopping in a bush, or catch the neighbor’s German Shepard stretching its pink tongue over the river bank, lapping curiously at a passing clump of snow. A pine tree, extending an arm over the river like an upheld umbrella, might shake its load of snow onto my head in a fine, powdery dust. And a grey squirrel, scampering across the telephone line, would stop in its tracks just to study me. And maybe, just maybe, I thought, I could have Christmas morning all to myself. Perfect in its suspended quiet, with its trees and houses and cats and dogs all poised in a stolen moment of blissful anticipation. Just like my mother said Christmas morning ought to be.
But, I suddenly realized, I can’t unearth this canoe until I’ve waded through all those presents! And so, like a rubber band shot from a slingshot, I snapped back into the living room and to my spot beneath the Christmas tree. My sisters’ eyes were practically rolling in their heads from the strained effort to keep themselves from jumping feet first into the presents. Was it time? Was it time yet to open the presents? I smiled wide-eyed up at my mother, inclining my head knowingly toward the pregnant canoe. She winked at me and then - finally, at last! - she nodded her head. The unspoken signal that cried Let the festivities begin! Pulling at ribbons and tearing through paper, Christmas morning took flight like a chickadee startled from the rushes.
With each round of gifts, I got closer and closer to unearthing my pretty little Old Town canoe. I imagined that she would buoy up with a whoosh once the last gift was spent - as if all those presents were nothing but an anchor that had held her down beneath the surface. And once that boat had finally crested, and only then, would the most significant Christmas offering finally be unveiled: the chance to dip an oar into a river made of snow, and escape with a forest green canoe into the fleeting pages of a child’s crisp and pure imagination.