A Christmas Jar for Santa: A Christmas Jars Story Read online

  A Christmas Jar for Santa: A Christmas Jars Story

  A Christmas Jar for Santa: A Christmas Jars Story

  Midpoint

  A Christmas Jar for Santa

  A Christmas Jars Story

  Jason F. Wright

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2011 Jason F. Wright

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  A Christmas Jar for Santa

  A Christmas Jars Story

  Jason F. Wright

  What is the Christmas Jars tradition?

  “...one by one, family members will empty their pockets and delight at the cling-clang of change hitting the empty glass bottom. Most days will yield a quarter, a dime, perhaps two nickels and a stray penny. Occasionally Mother will make change for herself by drop- ping in a worn dollar bill and pulling out an appropriate combination of cool silver coins. Over the months that follow, the gathering change will leave no recognizable void. Occasionally the temptation to borrow for laundry, a movie, or the ice-cream truck will float through the house, over the jar, and out the back door. But it never lands. The money is spoken for.” (Excerpt from Christmas Jars, copyright 2005, published by Shadow Mountain.)

  Christmas Jars, a New York Times bestselling novella by Jason Wright, first became a phenomenon during the 2005 holiday season. Readers across America reacted to the message of daily giving and sacrifice by creating their own Christmas Jars.

  Today, thousands of glass jars rest on kitchen countertops, slowly collecting the spare change generated each and every day. On Christmas Eve, each jar, now overflowing with both money and goodwill, will anonymously find a new home. In turn, the grateful recipients will put the money to good use in their lives and begin their own jar. Thus hearts and lives are changed and the cycle continues.

  A Christmas Jar for Santa

  A Christmas Jars Story

  I’m not much of a writer, but I figure I should tell this story. You see, this Christmas was the best I ever had, and I’ve had a lot of great Christmases. You could say that Christmas is my job these days.

  See, I’m already ahead of myself. You need to know some things before what happened last week will make any sense to you. And I really want it to make sense.

  Let’s start back in ’54. The Korean War had just ended, and my angel Pauline—God rest her soul—was waiting for me to come back so we could get married. We were hardly ever apart from the day of our wedding until the day of her funeral.

  We tried to have children, but it wasn’t supposed to be. That’s what Pauline said, anyway. She always loved kids, and I guess it rubbed off on me, eventually.

  Christmas became really special to us because of the kids. Pauline volunteered us for everything around the holidays, especially anything that involved children. She would get such a look on her face when she was with them. She would look down at a fresh- scrubbed, freckled five-year-old face and then look up at me and tell me with her eyes how much it hurt to have to borrow other people’s kids. No matter how many times she told me it wasn’t my fault, part of me wondered.

  After leaving the Army, I went to work in a factory. By the time I retired, my hair was completely white. I was only sixty, but I guess it was just time. That Christmas, Jake Carnahan, the church Santa, took ill, and Pauline talked me into taking his place. I’ve been doing it ever since. Goodness, that was exactly twenty years ago. Six and a half since Pauline passed on.

  Anyway, I grew a big white beard and even put on a little extra weight—Pauline helped by being the best cook in the valley—and basically spent half the year getting ready for Christmas. At first, I just stood in for Santa at the church, but then Pauline talked me into going to the hospital over in Greenville, and the next thing I knew, I was as busy as the jolly old man himself.

  I remember the feeling I had the first time a little boy looked me over and finally trusted me enough to share his Christmas wishes with me. I hadn’t been that nervous since the war. In fact, at that moment I think I would have been glad for a foxhole to hide in. Young Allen Christensen told me that he wanted something called a Walkman. Well, nowadays I know just about every toy and gadget out there, but back then I just said what Pauline had told me to say when I couldn’t say anything else.

  “Have you been a good enough boy to earn a Walking Man?” I asked in my jolliest voice.

  “Not Walking Man,” he said patiently. “Walkman. It plays music.”

  “Have you been good enough to earn a Walkman?” I tried again.

  “Yes, I have been very good. Even my mom says so.”

  I panicked and looked around for Pauline, but she had her back to me. My eyes were finally drawn to the face of Allen’s father. He smiled and gave a nod so slight it could only have been shared by us. “Yes, I think I might be able to add a Walkman to your Christmas list.”

  Oh, that was a wonderful moment. My chest swelled with so much pride and happiness that I thought my red Santa jacket was going to pop its buttons. My nervousness left me, and I have never been worried since. Pauline says I’m a natural.

  I’ve had hundreds of kids tell me what they want for Christmas. Only Santa Claus himself has taken more orders, I reckon. Some requests were pretty unusual. Katherine Collier was really too old to be asking Santa for presents, but as her mother said, she was “covering her bases.” She looked me right in the eye and told me she was expecting a real, living, full-sized horse. “I don’t expect it to be under the tree, of course,” she said. “Out in the yard will be fine.”

  By then, I had learned a thing or two. “Horses and such are special requests. You should send a letter to the North Pole. The elves up there will check the records. We’ll see what we can do.” If you talk to kids as if they’re grownups, they will usually act as grown up as they can.

  Katherine narrowed her eyes, nodded very seriously, and said, “I’ll do that.”

  I can picture her clearly because her daughter Amber just sat on my knee the other day.

  Time moves so quickly.

  I had best be getting on with my story. You have more to do than read the ramblings of an old man.

  Besides taking requests on behalf of the North Pole, I also handed out presents that people wanted to give to each other anonymously. Like everything else Pauline and I did, this part of our Christmas work started out small but grew a little every year. The first present I ever gave out was a scarf that Pauline had knitted. It was as red as the season and had green fringe. Pauline made dozens of them over the years. Kelly Winston got that first one. There was almost an awkward scene when she saw what it was. Pauline was looking on, and Kelly’s face fell a little when she saw the scarf. I moved my head to block Pauline’s view and whispered, “You’re getting this now so there will be room in Santa’s sleigh for all your toys.” Then I moved aside to make sure Pauline could see the new look on Kelly’s face.

  Pauline made scarves, and I made little wooden boats. Soon, churches and businesses began donating clothes and toys. This year, I personally gave out over a thousand presents. And Erin sent a whole truckload over to another Santa’s helper across the mountain.

  I haven’t mentioned Erin yet, have I? She’s the only reason I can still do any of this now that Pauline is gone. I first saw Erin on her 13th birthday. She stood in the corner of the room and stared at me as I visited with the children Pauline helped balance on my knee. I looked over at her several times and smiled at her. I think I even winked once. Her face stayed frozen in a kind of doubtful scowl. I see a face like that a few times every year. It seems that kids about that age start to think differently about Santa and Christmas. I don’t know why—it’s just as magical that year as it was the year before.

  Erin next touched our lives seven years ago. Pauline wasn’t even feeling sick yet, and we had no idea she had cancer. Everything was going on as usual. She had me booked from Thanksgiving through Christmas, and we were looking forward to the season. One afternoon in November, she came through the door carrying a box that was too big for her.

  “Let me get the rest of them,” I said as I got out of my chair.

  “Oh, no, dear, stay put. I have a helper today.”

  Erin, at that time a senior in high school, followed her into the house. “Remember me?” she asked.

  “Of course,” I said. It is amazing that I forget so many things but remember these kids.

  “You’re Steve and Julie’s daughter.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Erin is going to help us this year as a service project for school,” Pauline explained.

  “It’ll look good on my college applications,” Erin added a little sheepishly.

  “Welcome aboard,” I said with my most Christmassy smile.

  Having Erin with us made everything so much easier. Pauline and I were able to focus on the spirit of what we were doing instead of on the details. We could pick and choose the things that made us happy, and Erin took on the rest.

  She seemed to want to do as much as possible, and she wrote d
own every detail in her service project book. I was worried about her doing the right things for the wrong reason, but Pauline told me not to worry about it. No matter what her motives were, Erin made that the best Christmas Pauline and I ever spent together.

  Erin was a huge help that year, but she became part of the family the next spring. That was when Pauline’s cancer showed itself and quickly ate away at her. The doctors offered some experimental treatments, but she wasn’t interested. I tried to talk her into trying something, anything to stay a little longer. She said, “I would rather live my last days happy and strong than my last months bald and sick.”

  “But what about Christmas? I can’t do it alone.”

  “You’ll do it. You must do it. Promise me.”

  I promised. She passed away nine and a half weeks later. Erin helped me go through her things. I pined for her so. When October came, I didn’t want to live, let alone do the Christmas things that Pauline and I had done together for so many years.

  “You promised,” Erin reminded me over the phone from college. “I’ll coordinate from here and come to help as soon as classes end.”

  I went through the motions that year with Erin at my side. I was not a very jolly man, but we did some good.

  Each of the next five seasons got easier and easier. Erin did everything over the phone or during weekend visits. The year she graduated from college, she went straight to work for the TV station and convinced them to do a series of stories about our project. I didn’t like the idea much, but it brought in some more presents, so it worked out all right. Erin took Pauline’s place in lots of ways and finally seemed to be doing it because she loved it.

  That brings us up to this year.

  I decided back in July that I am too old to be doing this anymore. Even with Erin’s help, it’s a lot of work for an old man. When I told Erin, she said, “Oh. I see. Well, if you can’t keep the promise, I suppose you can’t.” That was a mean thing to say, but it worked. I knew Pauline would understand when the time came for me to quit but, truth be told, I had another year in me. I figured I would give it all I had this year and then hang up the old black boots and let someone else take over.

  Todd Franklin made it all worthwhile. I don’t know what made him so special, really.

  I’ve seen hundreds like him. I guess it was just the combination of his smile, Erin’s hand on my shoulder, and his sweet six-year-old voice saying, “Can I ask for something for somebody else?”

  “Of course you can.”

  “I want my mommy to have a new dishwasher. Ours is broken, and it’s a lot of work to wash dishes in the sink.”

  “Do you help your mom do the dishes, Todd?”

  “Why do you think I want her to get a new dishwasher?”

  I let out the first bowl-full-of-jelly laugh I’ve enjoyed in seven years.

  Last Wednesday, Christmas Eve, Erin took the last box of gifts over to the homeless shelter and told me to go home. I was exhausted. We really had pulled out all the stops this year, and I was looking forward to climbing into my bed. As I pulled into my driveway, I saw that I had left the light on in the kitchen.

  I went to turn it off and noticed that someone had been in there since I left. There was a plate of cookies and a tall glass of milk on my little table. Next to that was a large jar with “Christmas Jar” written on it.

  Now I know about Christmas jars. I have heard about nearly every Christmas tradition there is. What I couldn’t figure out is how somebody could think that I would ever accept a jar full of money as a Christmas gift. Whoever did it must have known that I would just turn around and use the money to buy gifts for next year. “Maybe that’s what they expected,” I thought as I opened the jar.

  The silver coins I had seen through the glass weren’t coins, though, at least not the money kind. They were large wooden coins painted silver. I picked one up and put my glasses back on. On one side were written the words “Merry Christmas.” On the other side was the name Todd Franklin and the number 6. The words were obviously written by Todd. I picked up another. “Sarah Lynch, 11.” I quickly sifted through several more. “Amber Templeton, 3.” “Kelly Winston, 27,” “Katherine Collier, 21.” “Allen Christensen, 30.”

  There were one hundred thirty-five coins in that jar, and every one of them had a name and an age on it. It took me an hour to go through them all because I had to stop and think of every child. I had to blow my nose and wipe my eyes a few times, too.

  “Who did this,” I wondered out loud.

  On the table where the jar had been was a folded piece of paper. My blurry eyes had missed it. I opened it and read:

  Dear Santa,

  You made us all believe. Thank you.

  Love, Erin.

  P.S. See you next year.

  Maybe I have one more year in me after all.

  May your Christmas Jar

  overflow with the joys of the season.

  *****

  About the author:

  Jason Wright is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USAToday bestselling author. He is also a political commentator and the co-founder of http://www.politicalderby.com, a popular website for political junkies.

  Articles by Jason have appeared in over 50 newspapers and magazines across the United States including The Washington Times, The Chicago Tribune, and Forbes. He is the author of The James Miracle (2004); Christmas Jars (2005); The Wednesday Letters (2007); Recovering Charles (2008), Christmas Jars Reunion (2009); Penny's Christmas Jar Miracle (2009); The Cross Gardener (2010); The Seventeen Second Miracle (2010); and The Wedding Letters (2011).

  Jason is also a popular speaker who speaks on the origin of the Christmas Jar movement, the Joy of Service, the lost art of letter writing and other topics. He has been seen on CNN, FoxNews, C-SPAN, and on local television affiliates around the country.

  Jason is from Charlottesville, Virginia, but has also lived in Germany, Illinois, Brazil, Oregon and Utah. In 2007, while researching Virginia’s lush Shenandoah Valley for his novel The Wednesday Letters, Jason fell so in love with the area that he moved his family westward from northern Virginia into the heart of the Valley.

  To learn more about the Christmas Jars tradition, visit: http://www.christmasjars.com

  Cover Design by Christy Y. Jenkins

 

 

  Jason Wright, A Christmas Jar for Santa: A Christmas Jars Story

  Thanks for reading the books on GrayCity.Net