Visions of Sugar Plums

         Sleet slapped against the warm kitchen window.  Icy fingers cascaded down the panes like a crystal-bead curtain.  Angry iced pellets rasped against the valiant glass panes, drawing Cecilia’s attention away from her task.  She turned toward the window behind her.

         A howling wind blustered against her Wisconsin house, bombarding Cecilia’s mind’s eye with images of the pesky bill collectors who had been assailing them.  The banshee’s battering reminded her how harsh their Christmas might be this year.  But she envisioned a pleasant holiday, snug inside their home tonight.  Shrugging, she smiled and returned to her baking.

         Cecilia sifted flour into a yeasty mixture methodically, just like her mother had taught her.  She was following her family’s traditional holiday baking ritual that she wanted to pass on to her daughter, Leila, who was absent this afternoon.  She wanted to chat about how she had enjoyed this day’s preparations with her mother when she was Leila’s age.  Cecilia wanted to keep close to Leila while they still had time together.  She had planned to share her holiday preparations with Leila today, but she let  her ten-year-old daughter to venture out in the afternoon’s storm for a few hours.  She knew that Leila sorely missed her little brother.  Leila had been noticeably melancholy and quiet since they had buried Joey last year.  A few hours at the library should cheer Leila up, Cecilia speculated.  Besides, they could start their new family holiday traditions when she returned. 

         Mixing the sweet-bread batter, Cecilia wondered how the family would recapture seasonal joy again.  Money was tight; they were up to their eyeballs in debt.  Her husband, Raphael, had become an unemployment statistic in late summer after being laid off from his mechanist’s job at the engine parts factory.  Although Raphael had found a part-time job at a gas station-convenience store, they had lost sight of a balanced budget.  Finances had always been troublesome even when she had worked as a grocery checkout clerk, which she was unable to do these days.  Her auto accident last year and a torrent of medical, therapy, and funeral bills had plunged them into deep, depressing debt.

         Cecilia worked the sticky stollen batter.  She loved the feel of the lumps of nuts, raisins and candied fruit that clung to her fingers.  She sprinkled more flour and continued kneading the dough.  As she dusted the board, Cecilia thought of Joey, how much she missed him this holiday season.  Her son was a ghost this Christmas.  Last year, Cecilia had been in too groggy from the medications and in too much agony from the accident to deeply experience Joey’s absence.  Today, she sorely felt his loss.  Joey would have been six years old now.  She recalled how nerve-wracking and troublesome Joey’s pestering had been sometimes.  But, she missed her tow-headed son.  She yearned for him to be with her now, cutting cookie shapes, icing gingerbread, or begging for a taste of the raw stollen batter.

         Silly; I forgot to turn on the oven. Cecilia placed the baking sheet on the stovetop and covered the dough with a towel.  As she cloaked the dough, she remembered how Raphael’s job hunt had been stifled and how his fruitless search was taking a toll on him.  She knew he felt guilty because he hadn’t been able to afford complete therapy for her.  Her right leg would never be able to flex fully again.

         Before attacking the mound of dirty dishes in the sink, Cecilia pushed her hair away from her forehead with the back of her hand.  She touched a scar and pondered Raphael’s guilt again.  Because the insurance money had run out, she only had partial facial surgery; the doctors salvaged only a portion of her once pretty, fair complexion. 

         Another sleet barrage attacked the window.  A hefty squall slammed against the window, causing Cecilia to flinch instinctively.  She thought she spotted her reflection on the window’s gray icy curtain.  Cecilia’s short, curly blonde wisps of hair rested atop her five-foot-four frame and dangled around her now pitted and scarred face.  I must be dreaming, she cautioned herself and turned her attention to dishwashing. 

         As she finished rinsing Raphael’s coffee cup, Cecilia recalled how grouchy he had seemed at lunch.  He hadn’t said much and was secretive about something.  Maybe, she fancied, his touchy silence was masking his despondency and desperation.  Cecilia sensed her husband was disturbed today; but whatever the cause, she judged that his mood would not disrupt their holiday together.  She especially needed the comfort of her family surrounding her this Christmas Eve.

         Cecilia chuckled to herself as she remembered the preposterous brainchild Raphael had one day when he announced that he was going to place a newspaper ad to sell one of his eyes for seven thousand dollars.  That was an outrageous idea, but Raphael seemed to cook up a lot of cockeyed dreams these days.  She couldn’t allow herself to picture him without his sight.  Selling off body parts might have been a sorry notion even though that money certainly would have paid off their sizeable debt and afforded them a fancy Christmas.  But she did appreciate Raphael’s willingness to sacrifice himself.  She shrugged off the daydream and, while drying his cup, prayed that Raphael wasn’t engaged in some short-sighted scheme today.

         Cecilia hobbled into the utility room.  Her foot kicked the cat’s litter box that Leila had forgotten to replace in its ordained location.  One ritual in Cecilia’s maternal holiday routine was to provide clean laundry for the holidays—or as she had interpreted the rite—that no dirty clothes were to be seen around the house on this holiday.  Cramming the wet wash into the dryer, Cecilia regretted Leila’s absence to share in the family rituals. 

         The telephone rang, and Cecilia shuffled to answer before the fourth ring.

         “Hello, Ceel?”  Her friend’s voice chimed.

         “Hi, Marie.”

         “I know this is probably a bad time to call, so I’ll make it short.  Al just got home with his bonus and we decided to have a party this Saturday night.  Can you and Raeph make it?”

         “Oh, I don’t know.  This is kind of sudden, you know.  I’ll ask him.”

         “Well, I hope you can make it.  How are your Christmas plans going?”

         “All right, I guess.  I’m just baking stollen now.  We’ll probably spend a nice quiet holiday here at home.  How about you?”

         “Oh, the kids are in a tizzy to open their presents already.  And I’ve got to get the house cleaned up.  Al’s parents are coming over tonight, and I’ve got to get some things from the store yet.  We’ll go to my folk’s place tomorrow.  And I don’t know when I’m going to get my hair done.  This place is a mad house.”  A chilling silence distanced the callers.  “I’ve got to get going.  Tell me what you decide.  And, Ceel, have a merry Christmas.”

         “Thanks, Marie.  You too.”

         Cecilia’s neighbor was often mindlessly spontaneous.  Cecilia thought that Marie should know that they didn’t like to venture out much, especially in winter.  It was thoughtful of Marie to invite us, she decided.  Cecilia knew they wouldn’t go.  They were too embarrassed to venture into public—even to a private neighborhood party.

         The baking timer rang, and Cecilia ambled back to her ritual.  She felt the dough and judged it ready.  After re-shaping the dough into the familiar crescent, she opened the pre-heated oven door.  She fumbled and almost dropped the cookie sheet on the floor, but she managed to pop the tray inside unspoiled.

         Out of habit and in order to keep herself occupied, Cecilia began vacuuming the living room.  As she stroked the carpet fiercely, she banged her right leg against the couch.  She was thankful to feel the sting there.  Until a few months ago, she wouldn’t have been able to feel a leg pain.  The pang made her appreciate the fact that she was still alive.

         As she handled the vacuum hose, Cecilia visualized Raphael pumping gas through the cold, dark winter hours.  They had heard rumors that store might close due to the local economy.  Even if the store remained open, the heavy number of job applicants had been reducing Raphael’s scheduled work hours.  Her husband couldn’t gain more hours nor could he wangle a different position.  She knew Raphael was troubled about his employment prospects.  He had been loosing hair; she had noticed his balding head.

         Cecilia finished straightening the living room.  She stopped, leaned against the doorway, and inhaled deeply, delighting in the fresh, clean smell.  She didn’t have to empty the ashtrays, since Raphael had given up smoking cigarettes.  He had ceased with an eye toward economizing and not for any health reasons.  He had tried vainly to substitute pipe-smoking, but that effort had been short-lived.  Cecilia had enjoyed Raphael’s experiment because the aroma had reminded her of her father.

         Cecilia limped into the kitchen.  Without leg flexibility, she moved much slower.  She thought her disability was a blessing in disguise, since she moved unhurriedly and wouldn’t stumble over misplaced furniture or toys like some mothers might.  Moving to the counter, Cecilia listened to the ticking of the baking timer.  She felt the indentations on the plastic dial and smiled as the ticking seemed to syncopate the moments of her life.

         Carefully pouring hot water into a cup, Cecilia prepared her tea and sat down.  She mulled over how nice it had been to have Raphael home so much of the time.  When he wasn’t working or waiting in the unemployment line or hunting for another job, he stayed and talked with her.  They hadn’t conversed much before the accident; now they did. 

         She stirred her tea and realized that they both had changed.  Since her recovery, they spent a great deal of time cheering each other up across the kitchen table.  For her part, Cecilia tried to comfort him and to point out the blessings they had.  And Raphael tried to reassure her by painting images of better times to come—“sugar plum times,” he labeled the scenarios. 

         Raphael had changed considerably, Cecilia mused as she sniffed her tea.  The financial worry and the job hunting had melted pounds off his six-foot-two frame.  He had lost most of his beer-blister belly and now wore pants a size or two smaller.  Raphael had surrendered his after-work drinking buddies and he had given up gambling on sports pools.  She knew he still futilely tried to grab quick money.  She had discovered the lottery tickets that he bought occasionally.  Cecilia folded her hands in quick prayer to keep Raphael safe from any hair-brained pipe-dreams.

         Sipping her tea, Cecilia regretted the lack of Christmas presents.  This certainly wasn’t going to be as bountiful a holiday as they had in the past.  She had managed to knit presents for Raphael and Leila.  She felt a bit guilty about her extravagance in using the pricy ingredients for her holiday baking.  She shook her head, sadly estimating how these were scanty offerings compared with previous Christmases. 

         Their families were scattered for these holidays.  Cecilia’s mother was deceased and her arthritic father was living in a retirement village in Arizona.  Raphael’s parents had retired to Florida and wouldn’t be traveling north in the wintertime.  The rest of their relatives had moved out of state.  She gulped the last of her tea and resolved that, despite all else, she was going to make this a charming Christmas for her family; she would begin new holiday traditions.  She hoped Raphael had remembered to mail the greeting cards this year.

         The back door banged open.  Leila bounded inside, flipped off her boots, and whirled into the kitchen.  “Mom, I’m home.”

         “Did you have a nice time?”  Cecilia questioned, feeling the cold breeze surrounding her daughter.

         “It was okay.  I want to play some music, you know, like they have in stores.  Do we have any?”

         “You know we have our one and only Christmas album in the entertainment center.”

         Dragging her leg behind her, Cecilia followed Leila into the living room.  Leila adjusted the sound on Percy Faith’s Music of Christmas album.

         “Is your room cleaned up, Lee?”

         “Uh huh.  But I’ve got to finish wrapping my presents.”  She turned up the volume and scampered into her bedroom to the strains of “Joy To The World.”

         Cecilia returned to the oven-heated kitchen.  The baking stollen’s spicy aroma filled her senses and cheered her with a vision of a sugar plum Christmas.  She was pulling the ingredients for dinner out of the cupboards, when the back door whooshed open and Raphael trudged in, rustling paper bags.

         “Hey, it sounds like Christmas in here.  Umm, what’s that delicious smell?”

         “Stollen.”  Fearing that he had lost sight of their budget, she asked, “Raeph, what did you do?”

         “Now, little miss nosey, don’t bother about it.  I just got some special little things, like eggnog, fancy nuts, pickled herring, and other little munchies you like,” he said, putting the groceries down.

         “Honey, you know you shouldn’t have.  We can’t afford it.  Where did you get the money?”

         “Now, don’t go poking around in there.  You might break something.”  He grabbed her into his arms and hugged her tightly.  “And don’t worry about the expense.”  He nestled his face in the hollow of her shoulder and nipped her neck with his cold, chapped lips.  The smell of outside winter and the wet splotches of his coat refreshed her hot cheeks.  “An angel sent us a Christmas check.” 

         “An angel?”

         “Yes.  And we’ll see him later.”  Raphael set her down on a chair and, with a flurry of movements to cupboard and refrigerator, he soon emptied the sacks.

         “I’ll let you put the bags away.  Be right back.”  He turned and almost ran out of the door.

         While Cecilia folded the brown bags, Raphael returned through the narrow hallway.  Cold air blasts attacked the kitchen’s baking heat and pumped pine fragrance in swirls that announced Raphael’s surprise.

         “What in the world?”

         “Now, darling, don’t fret.  It’s only a scrawny orphan nobody wanted on the tree lot.  It didn’t cost much.”

         She followed her husband into the living room and perched in a chair.  He pushed aside the sofa and a recliner, and positioned the tree where they always had stationed one. 

         Leila, attracted by the noise, scampered into the room.  “Daddy, it’s beautiful!”

         “I’m glad you like it.  Are you going to trim it?”

         “Oh, Daddy, can I?  Mommy, where are the ornaments?”

         “In the back of the closet in the basement.”

         Leila skipped off to claim the boxes in several trips, stopping occasionally to pirouette to “Deck The Halls.” 

         Meanwhile, Raphael secured the tree in the stand, and, once locating and testing them, strung the lights through the branches.  “Oh-oh, almost four-thirty.  I’ve got to go.”

         “Where are you going now?”  Cecilia puzzled.

         “Please don’t fret, hon.  I’ve got an errand to run yet.  You can finish the tree, can’t you, Lee?”

         “Sure, Daddy.”

         Raphael left the house.  Leila rummaged through the boxes.

         “Let me get the ornaments, Lee.  You get on a chair and start trimming from the top.  I’ll hand the bulbs to you.”

         Leila obeyed, retrieving the kitchen stool and placing it next to the tree.  She reached for the tree-top: “Oh, Mommy, the angel looks so pretty.”

         “Yes.  Your father and I bought that for our first Christmas together.”  Cecilia paused for the memory.  “Now be careful, sweetie.  Here’s one.”

         Cecilia slowly offered the bulbs one by one, holding them in the air as Leila snatched them and hanged each in a special position.  Gradually, the tree was filled with the small and large glass ornaments: smooth orbs with rough patterns of snowflakes, reindeer and snowmen; elongated icicles and stars; and, the special hand-crafted ornaments gotten each Christmas for Leila and Joey.

         “I guess that’s all the decorations, Lee.  Can you do the tinsel by yourself?”

         “I sure can, Mommy.”

         Cecilia returned to the kitchen.  She took the stollen out of the oven and, while the sweet bread cooled, mixed an icing.  Smearing the glaze over the sweet bread, Cecilia smiled.  This Christmas just has to be happy, she vowed.

         “I’m all done, Mom.”

         Cecilia returned to her chair. 

         Leila quickly snuggled into her lap.  “Oh, Mommy, it’s beautiful.”

         Cecilia pressed Leila closer.  She stroked the youngster’s short black hair.  The two sat quietly next to the tree that now was colorfully glowing and twinkling in the darkened room. 

         Percy Faith’s orchestra finished serenading them with “Adeste Fideles” for a second time while they cuddled.

         “I’ve got to start supper,” Cecilia said, releasing Leila and rising.

         “I’ll get the presents for under the tree.  Okay, Mommy?”

         “Okay.  You know where they are, don’t you?”

         “Yup,” Leila responded from a bedroom.

         Emotionally drained, Cecilia groped back into the kitchen.  She clattered through the cabinets for kettles to prepare her dinner menu of scrambled eggs, buttered noodles, and applesauce.  She fondly remembered how her parents’ Depression Era feast had become her family’s Christmas Eve traditional fare—and the dishes were in view of their budget these days.

         The back door opened again.  Two male voices clamored through the hallway.  Shucking off his boots, Raphael called, “Ceel, look who’s here.  It’s our Christmas angel.”

         “Hi, baby,” her father’s familiar voice spoke before she could guess who had arrived.  He embraced her and kissed her.

         “Dad, how on earth …?”  She gulped back her emotion.

         “He’s been on the bus for the last day,” Raphael volunteered.  “We sort of plotted this behind your back.”  He chuckled.

         “Smells like your mother’s cooking,” her father said.  “It’s so nice to be home.”

         The next hour and a half passed very quickly.  The family was deeply engrossed in chatter about times past and people absent.  The meal was highlighted with the astonishing phone call from Florida with well-wishes and seasons’ greetings from Raphael’s parents.  Leila, more helpful than usual, washed all the dishes while the adults talked.  After their clattering subsided, she cued in Percy Faith’s orchestra and begged everyone to come into the living room.  She pulled her mother by the hand into the living room and quickly guided her into an easy chair.

         The sound of tearing paper was punctuated with the murmurs of awe around the glimmering tree.  Raphael’s father-in-law presented him with Mannheim Steamroller’s The Christmas Angel album that they promptly tried out.  Leila performed her interpretive routine to the upbeat electronic rendition that she announced was her “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies.” 

         Leila received a finely detailed, sculpted walnut horse from her woodcarver grandfather.  She thanked him and then apologized that she had not gotten him a gift.  Scooting off to her room, she returned in a few minutes to present him with a colored poster of Santa Claus, who was sitting next to a cactus in the desert and strumming a guitar while his balloon sang, “Merry Christmas to My Cowboy Grandpa.”

         Cecilia’s father gave her a bust of a boy with his dog, which he had whittled out of cherry wood.  She fingered the lines and, before she could say anything, her father confessed: “I’m sorry if it disturbs you.  I just couldn’t get Joey out of mind while I carved it.”

         “Oh, it’s beautiful, Dad,” Cecilia sniffed as she pressed the wood to her cheek.  “I’m sorry we don’t have any presents for you.”

         “Just being with you tonight is present enough for me.  That’s all I want from you,” he smiled and puffed on his pipe.

         “I’m glad you’re here, Dad,” Cecilia replied, savoring the aroma of her father’s familiar Sir Walter Raleigh tobacco.

         More presents appeared.  Raphael gave Leila an artist’s kit.  In return, he received a small board with eye-hooks for keys.  On the red placard was inscribed in white letters: “To The World’s Greatest Dad.”  Cecilia presented Raphael with a red muffler in a box with a slab of his favorite home-made fudge nestled inside.  He fetched his wife a heavy box of assorted Brach’s chocolates. 

         Leila opened her gift of cap and mittens, and then handed her mother an odd shaped package.  “This is for you, Mommy.  From me.”

         Tearing off the colored cellophane Cecilia sensed what it was already: a clay-molded portrait of Cecilia on pale blue cardboard backing.  She felt the fine detail of the nose, lips, and cheeks; she stroked the strands of yellow yarn chopped to resemble her own coif.  She automatically touched her own scarred features in comparison.  She smiled while her tears welled up.

         “I wish you could see it, Mommy.”

         “Leila, it’s beautiful.  I may be blind, but I don’t need my eyes to see how beautiful it is.”  Cecilia choked back a grateful sob.  “Come on, everyone; let’s start a new tradition.  Let’s eat the stollen right here next to the tree.”

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