Small White Bag of Cookies
Floating from speakers, hidden by hanging plastic poinsettias, “Deck the Halls” did nothing but irritate me. I was missing the Spirit of Christmas Eve completely.
I pushed my way around insistent, faceless, last minute shoppers and strollers carrying crying babies and toddlers. People!!! Every muscle ached, I’d skipped lunch and now I was starving. I readjusted my bundles and stopped at the cookie counter to bay a little bag of fresh chocolate chip cookies. Then, I would locate my care and make one last stop before calling it a day – a Season!
I tossed my motley gifts – not even what I’d come out for – beside me on the seat and bit into a cookie before pulling into traffic. The late hour found me talking to myself, mentally checking off my list. One more stop: slow down on the cookies…I’d buy some cocoa to go with them at the next mall, sit down and collect myself and try to regain some good will toward my fellow man. Then I’d get my last gift and head for home.
Holiday reminders swung in a wet wind above the still crowded streets, as I changed lanes back and forth, back again, glaring at a lady who cut me off.
“Cocoa…cookies…home…bed…cocoa…cookies…home…bed” the windshield wipers seemed to promise as they scraped against the crystals forming on the windshield.
At the mall, I bought a hot cup of cocoa and dropped onto a bench, cursing the lid the harried clerk had put on, despite my request not to.
“Darn!” Milky bilge dribbled down the front of my dress coat. An old woman sharing my bench gave me a sympathetic smile. “Sorry” I said, organizing myself better, and swabbing at the cocoa trail, grabbing my white bag lying there between us. Eagerly, I pulled out a cookie.
A rustle beside me, and I turned just in time to see my bench mate lift out a cookie for herself too. Then she smiled at me.
What did this crazy old woman think she was doing, and smiling like that? Wonderful, I thought. With a mall full of Santa’s helpers I pick a alooney! The woman’s clothes were unmatched, and her coat folded next to my bag of cookies, looked frayed and out of style. Alright I dared…just try taking my cookies again.
Slowly and deliberately I lifted out another cookies. Not moving her eyes from mine and still smiling the old woman did the same. She chewed looking entirely pleased to be sharing my cookies. As I looked at her in disbelief, she peered into my bag and brought out the last morsel. Then…she offered it to me!!
“How decent of you” I thought, grabbing my cookie But her smile, it wasn’t crazy. Worse than crazy, it was almost soft and rather sweet. The nerve of her! This was definitely the last straw, this woman had destroyed any Christmas Spirit I could muster.
Jumping up, I left the bag for her to dispose of and rushed out. Too angry to see very well in the dark, I struggled with my car lock, mumbling things I wished I had shouted.
As I slid into the driver’s seat confusion filled my mind…there on the front seat I began to focus on a bag…white…strangely too familiar. I lifted it into the light as if it were fragile. Instantly, certainly…I gazed on it in disbelief, here, safe in my car was my own Christmas cookies.
Christmas has never been quite the same since that fateful year. Somehow it has enabled me to focus on the “Spirit” of the holidays and less on the mechanics we all seem to get caught up in. I will always be thankful for one ragged, worn wonderful Christmas stranger, that so graciously shared her meager sustenance on Christmas Eve, and I will strive to be more patient, more thoughtful of others and more Christlike.
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