Ah, memories

For a special edition to coordinate with our regularly published edition during Christmas week, the newspaper staff where I work was asked to write about our favorite Christmas memories. It took a couple of days to come up with something that was suitable for newsprint. Accompanying a picture of little April holding Papa Smurf and sitting on Santa's lap was the following story. Enjoy.

For most people, December invokes memories of hot chocolate in front of a fire, sleigh rides, and maybe even a Christmas carol or two. I'm not most people. The onslaught of dazzling garland, fancy ornaments and multicolored strands of lights adorning Christmas trees always make me remember a cold December evening involving two strangers and a lone pine tree.

It was the night of a holiday concert at my high school, and I was in my junior year. My friends Cara and Dave, self-proclaimed A/V geeks, had just finished filming the concert for school records, and then we were on our way to drop off Dave at his home out in the country. We made our way slowly, as the night was foggy and the roads were quite icy. About a quarter of a mile before Dave's house, near a Christmas tree farm, we saw two people standing along the side of the road, looking out into the fog as if they were waiting for someone. We left Dave safely at his house and made our slow return to town.

At the stop sign, Cara and I made sure we didn't see any oncoming headlights penetrating the fog, and we were just about to pull out when suddenly the back doors opened and the dome light came on. Two strange people, a young man and young woman, whom we later realized were the same two we'd seen earlier in front of the tree farm, hopped into the backseat. The man was frantically pulling a pine tree into the car. Cara and I stared in shock, my eyes meeting the startled gaze of the woman. She squeaked and jumped back out of the car. The man looked at us with both puzzlement and dread as he realized we apparently weren't the ride they had been waiting for. He shoved the tree back out, and he and the young woman disappeared into the fog.

The rest of the ride back to my house was punctuated with moments of laughter and bewilderment as we struggled to come to terms with the strange encounter. Had it really happened? Had they been figments of our imagination? The moment of truth was revealed when we opened the back doors and found a seat filled with fresh pine needles and an abandoned yellow flashlight.

So enjoy your candy-cane and mistletoe-filled memories. As for me, December will always call to mind visions of a cold, foggy night, good friends, and Christmas tree thieves.

Hope you enjoyed this very true story. My co-workers got a laugh, and I hope you did, too. A belated merry Christmas to you all, and good tidings in 2008!