Do You Hear What I Hear?

Jessica sat in the padded rocking chair a few feet from the fireplace, feeling the golden heat penetrate her aching knees and hands. It seemed that she felt the cold more acutely this year. Her doctor spoke of arthritis, and physical therapy, and steroid injections, but she wasn't having any of that. Sixty five wasn't as old as it used to be, and so far the fireplace and hot tea of an evening was working just fine.

Her gaze drifted around the quiet room as she slowly flexed her ankles and rocked the old chair. Since Karl had been called out to repair a burst pipe at the school the house was even quieter than usual.

Everything was neat as a pin, and why shouldn't it be with just the two of them at home? The rich smell of the annual gingerbread cookies, sugar-free recipe now of course due to the pre-diabetes that threatened them both, mingled with the orange spice tea and the fresh piney scent of the kindling stacked in the nearby basket.

It was so fresh that, if Jessica closed her eyes, she would have half-believed that the tiny shining tree was real and not iridescent poly-mylar-whatever. Oh, it was much easier to put up and then pack away, and she didn't miss the everlasting spill of needles that had a way of popping up in the carpet throughout the year, but she did miss that bright resiny piney smell. Maybe she'd hunt up one of those green car mirror sachets to tuck among the branches to enjoy and to make Karl laugh when he discovered it when he'd pack away the tree in a few weeks.

Chuckling, she checked her pocket for her phone to add the auto air freshener to her shopping list. Removing the phone from her pocket she raised it and the screen came to life as three happy faces smiled at her from the crystal surface.

Jessica couldn't help but to smile back at their open happy grins. It had been too long since she'd seen them in person and she wondered if Little #3 had filled in the gap-tooth grin with their permanent teeth yet. If... "Well," she said quietly to herself, "there is no need to get into the land of 'If', now, is there? It's better to make my peace here in the land of 'Is'."

Pushing off of the rockers arms, Jessica slowly got to her feet and busied herself with another log on the fire, a quick trip to the kitchen to warm her tea, and then a stop to turn on the complicated audio machinery that was one of Karl's pride and joys. Woofers, tweeters, components, Bluetooth: Jessica just wanted to find some classic Christmas carols and distract her from the chill she now felt in her bones. Chill that had nothing to do with the weather.

"Face it", she lightly scolded herself, "accept it and stop moping for what you don't have. Stop trying to remake what you can't control, stop crying over what ISN'T and be thankful for what IS." She knew this was good advice. It was certainly what she would tell anyone else sitting at the fire with her after she'd handed them a mug of tea and listened to their tale of regret and sadness.

The three Littles had never been at Jessica and Karl's home for the holidays. All holiday travel had meant Karl and Jessica would decide which end of the triangle they'd choose on their two time-off days for holiday: to see family North, East, or South.

Once chosen off they'd go with love and regret about the people they wouldn't see. Gifts were wrapped far ahead of time with the hopes that weather would allow delivery in person. But that changed during the pandemic. Being in person, always a logistics questions, wasn't possible. So presents wrapped for delivery would be sent instead, and a social media reel of gifts being opened might be the biggest interaction.

A sigh and the poker applied to the fire too energetically brought Jessica back to herself. Holidays were no longer like the ones she had enjoyed as a child, albeit that she had been oblivious to the cross currents of grown-up concerns at the time.

The house was filled on Christmas Eve with invited friends and family, as well as neighbors that remembered the brightly-lit home meant good food, that roaring fire in the two-sided hearth between the front room and the living room, and songs around the piano before midnight service and a contented sleep prior to Christmas morning gifts and laughter.

But that had been her childhood, her life. It wasn't one that she has passed along to her children when it had been long drives to one grandparents' home or the other. Her children had their own memories of childhood and holidays and had made it clear Jessica's presence belonged firmly in memory and not in present or future holidays.

So be it. It took a brisk crackle from the fireplace and the emergent cascade of logs onto the hearth to snap her out of the reverie and up from the rocker.

Jessica rearranged the logs and stacked a few properly into place, tutting at herself the whole time. Karl would be home soon, and he missed the Littles as much as she did. Adding her tear-streaked face was indulgent and simply not fair to him. What she needed was a good mix of Pentatonix, Johnny Mathis, Barbra Streisand, Chris Rea, and maybe she'd find Bing and Bowie singing The Little Drummer Boy. That was Karl's favorite.

Picking up the four remotes off of the sound system and adjusting her glasses, Jessica took a deep breath and spared just one more wish that she still had her old reliable boom box before she started to turn on and start the process of bringing Pandora into the mix.

She's just managed to sync with her phone and found the correct settings when she heard the sweet strains of a favorite carol starting. That was odd. She didn't think the speakers were on yet. But; wait, there it was again. Coming from... from outside the house?

It was too loud to be Karl's sonorous singing, floating high and clear on the other side of the windowpane, striped with colored lights reflecting from the tree. It was too dark for her to see the source, so snagging the sofa throw and tossing it over her shoulders Jessica walked from the snug house and into the achingly cold air.

Yes, the singing was here, but she couldn't see the singer. Make that singers, though, she thought as several other voices lifted the words of that Sunday School favorite into the night.

Do you hear what I hear?

A song, a song high above the trees

With a voice as big as the sea....

Pulling the soft blanket tighter and flipping the end over her head Jessica moved up the drive and looked towards the end of the street, where LED candles could now be seen.

Do you know what I know?

In your palace warm mighty King?

A Child, a Child, shivers in the cold...

Not two months ago these same singers were dressed as Taylor Swift and black cats, pirates and baseball players, knocking on her door with bags extended for treats. Now they were bundled into puffy coats and snow boots, walking down the now glowing candle lit street and singing.

Jessica knew what to do; it's what her neighbors had done when she was a girl so many years ago. It's what neighbors had done for her singers when she had taken them around the neighborhood to bring joy to seniors alone for the holidays.

With a wry smile Jessica accepted that fit her, now, too. She and Karl were now those seniors and; yes. Yes. She hoped that those long ago cold marches through the snow had warmed the heart of people then as much as it did for her now, as she quickly gathered still-warm gingerbread for the carolers that were gathering in a semi-circle at the end of the driveway.

Karl rounded the bend and stopped to take in a smiling Jessica, arms heaped with gingerbread as she nodded and sang with the children. The lights from the tree, the fragrant smoke from the chimney, and the glow from the fireplace reflecting through the window to light their their faces as they sang together:

Listen to what I say!

Pray for peace, people everywhere!

The Child, the Child, Sleeping in the night!

He will bring us goodness and light-

he will bring us goodness and light.