Two and a Half (Wise) Men
Saturday morning dawned clear and cold, and as usual I was up long before my husband. For some reason, I just can’t sleep in the way I used to. We were up early, woken by our cats looking for breakfast, and once awake, I couldn’t stay in bed any longer.
I was sitting in the front room, watching the morning break over the street, the glow of our Christmas lights shining on the snow drifts in our front yard, the way the arms of the spruce tree held the snow and the lights in a picture perfect tableau. I was admiring my Christmas tree in the pre-dawn light and having a rare moment of complete peace and satisfaction with the world and my place in it. I was thinking about my kids, my sisters so far away, my big brother and how long it had been since we sat around the tree together. I was thinking about my parents, how much they loved Christmas, everything about Christmas. The fun, the food, the friends and family that surrounded us. They were like two big kids and thier joy was an infection we all happily contracted. I wasn’t sad, just reflective really. Lost in other Christmases when things were different, not better, just different.
“from out on the lawn there arose such a clatter…” almost. From the kitchen came the scrabbling of claws on lino, scritch scritch scritch, dead silence for a second and then the unmistakable sound of my 6 month old kitten, Baxter, trying to make the corner into the dining room. In hot pursuit was Izzy, our year old kitten, the much older and wiser version of cat of course.
He didn’t quite make it.
Right in his path was our creche. Complete with angels, sheep, cows, shepherds and of course 3 wise men looking earnestly and somberly on. As Baxter rounded the corner, or attempted to, he veered into the manger, and one of the wise men, Caspar I think, sadly in the wrong place at the wrong time, was sent flying, only to land head first on the lovely wooden floor of the stable so lovingly recreated by my carpenter husbands hands.
Off flew his head – off flew the terrified cat, and just I sat there and watched the whole thing play out in what seemed like slow motion photography! The poor mans head spun in a crazy circle and then rolled over and over until it came to a stop next to a sheep.
Once I stopped laughing and let me tell you, that took some time, I went to the scene of the carnage and picked up poor Caspar. His head had snapped off cleanly, like he had been beheaded by something swift and sharp. How strange he looked, headless, with his flowing robes and outstretched hands bearing a gift. I wasn’t sure what to do with him!
An easy fix my husband assured me. A little gorilla glue from our friends at Lee Valley and all would be returned to normal.
Not quite I think. The story just begs telling. I had to phone everyone in my family. I phoned my kids, I phoned my mom, I phoned my sisters and the story grew funnier with every conversation. We all shared that laugh, that crazy moment when the unexpected comes. Of course, then the conversation moved to Christmases past, and funny things that we remembed, some we resurrected from childhood memories, some were family stories that just hadn’t come up, hadn’t been shared. In turn I spoke to all of them, and by the time the afternoon rolled around I had had quite an unexpected day!
Later that evening, at a concert at the John Walter House, one of the musicians asked ‘had anyone had a Christmas catastrophe yet that they’d like to share?’ Cat-astrophe alright, and one too good to keep to myself. I treated a roomful of strangers to a well recieved laugh and felt the story grow again.
Something so simple. Something that came to me at a time when I was feeling nostalgic about my kids growing up, homesick for my family, my sisters, old friends…and what happens? A wise man loses his head and I find Christmas.
Thanks Baxter. I couldn’t have asked for a better gift.
