One Magic Christmas , by David Conlin McLeod (c) 2003

One Magic Christmas

In the middle of the woods, some place far away and forgotten by most people, there lives a mother and a son in a small, simple looking log cabin. The home was strong and solid, but very modestly furnished. There is a room where they gathered around an iron cast stove and ate, and there is a room where the boy’s mother would sleep on a simple bed with only one quilt which she had traded something valuable to get.
It is the thick of winter, and all is cold and lonely around them. Mother is sick and lying still in her bed with the pale white face of a ghost upon her. Her forehead is soaking with fever and she had seldom stirred when the boy awoke from his own bed upon the floor by the stove.
From outside the window, the boy can see that for now the snow had stopped and all the world seemed covered in a thick blanket of endless white. Even the circles of trees around the house were sparkling and touched by the snow. They formed a wall around the cabin and partly kept it locked in shadow.
The stove cools quickly as the morning begins and the boy knows that her mother will need warmth to feel better.
As hungry as he is, he knows he will find nothing in the cupboards or small kitchen shelves. They were poor and without means of getting out of the cabin to trade or attempt to buy food. The snow was too deep, and mother was too sick and he was too young to travel out by himself. He often got lost in the woods, but mother, when she was healthy, would often find him and lead him back home.
The only thing on the boy’s mind right now is his sick mother sleeping and burning with fever. He must go out and find fuel for the stove. As deep as the snow was and as cold and blistering the winds would be, he would need to get firewood.
He is just a small boy with small, simple hands. Often he would help his mother gather up kindling or small twigs or fallen branches, but noting like the logs or heavier branches his mother often loaded in her arms.
The boy can only think of how far away they were from everyone else and how poor and lonely they were here. In the cold winter morning, he thinks that his mother may die if he doesn’t get the firewood. He doesn’t think about getting lost or getting cold. It doesn’t cross his mind. He knows he must gather wood and feed the stove while it is still only just cooling.
When the boy closes the door behind him and steps outside, he sees the one path he has always taken into the deeper woods. It is a wide path that only narrows the further you go along the length of it. All along the path there are tall pines and thick oak trees, far too tall and too thick for him to cut or ever hope to bring home for fueling a small iron stove.
As he walks, he feels the snow biting at his ankles and the cold creeping up his almost bare legs. Snow from the surrounding tree tops sprinkles down over his head, making his hair moist and wet.
Further down the path the woods get ever thicker. The greens become darker, despite the bright open sky above and the glowing sun of early morning. Each shade of green seems to suggest blacker shadows and more frightening places. As he pushes on, marching through the thick snow crawling and biting up his legs and shins, the pine trees around him seem to tower over him and reach out to him with their big, looming branches and heavy looking arms. The trunks of the trees were solid and thick. Only in the oaks not too far behind the walls of pine were the trunks twisted and knotted looking.
Looking all about the base of these trees, the boy could find no twigs or fallen branches, even as he dug through the snow with his small, bare hands. The snow made his hands turn almost blue and grey as he knelt on his knees and scrambled desperately for firewood. The stove back home would be cold soon and what little fire there was would surely be going out soon like a candle’s last flickering.
The path only cuts deeper in the woods and then it narrows even more. There must be wood further down, he thinks as he picks himself up from the snowy patches and sweeps his legs with his soaked and cold, numb hands.
* * *

Mother Nature gives life to all things in the woods. She makes the trees feel the rains that fall and the winds that stir their branches and make them sway. They can also be made to feel the cold of the snow and moan and groan as their branches creak and crack.
Further down the path, far away from the cabin where the boy and his mother live, there is a wide open clearing encircled by tall pines with thick only the thickest branches and greenest needles. They are the healthiest trees about this clearing and they speak to each other endlessly and tell stories to pass the long days and cold nights, when Mother Nature wanders about to bring more life to other wooded places.
In the center of the clearing is a smaller tree, with much thinner branches and only some green upon its few boughs. Among the taller trees around him, this one is but a sickly child. He is too far from the others to talk to and listen of their stories. This tree sometimes feels the cold and the rain and the wind, but he is often frightened. Right now though, this tree feels alone and sad, for he fears that he will die soon if Mother Nature doesn’t come to help him grow.
While the cold winter winds blow, the older trees shake their outstretched branches at him threateningly, scolding him with harsh creaks and groans. These are angry, mocking sounds full of hateful things. These trees seem to care nothing about the little tree all alone in the clearing.
* * *

A long time has passed and the sky only dims and darkens as the sun dips into the greens of the trees still towering over his head as the boy wanders now at the edges of the narrowing path.
He is cold, wet, and shivering, but knows he cannot go home just yet. His mother is very sick with fever and she hardly stirs from her bed with the one quilt to keep her warm.
Not too far ahead he sees a clearing, a wide open space where the sunlight touches the snow and tries to melt it. It is a warmer looking place. It looks far away from the path though, through a maze of tree trunks and dark places. More branches seem to lean towards him and reach out to snare his few tattered rags.
The warmth of the sun seems so inviting to him, yet so very far away. Looking back over at the narrow path behind him, it all seems so unfamiliar to him all of a sudden. The path looks different in all directions. Something has changed and now looks like something new.
As he makes his way to the clearing, he can hear the swaying of branches just over his head and the creaking of very old tree branches and the groaning from the thick and tall trunks of the pines that seem to surround and wrap around the clearing.
In the center of this plain looking circle of snow stands a small, lonely looking pine tree with bare looking branches, as thin as fingers and as brittle as toothpicks. The tree is only a little taller than the boy himself as he sits beside it wishing he wasn’t so small, so poor, so lonely, and so cold.
The old trees at the edge of the clearing seem to lean in on the boy and the little child tree and stare down at them menacingly. The boy can only look around him and feel hopeless. The path home seems too long to travel and is now hidden and lost to him in the walls of trees. Up above, high up in the sky, there are thick grey clouds gathering and swooping across to block the light of the warming sun. It is going to snow again very soon and it will only get darker and much more colder.
Mother was still sick and now far away from him. The only firewood to be found seems to be this lonely looking tree, just barely making crackling sounds and little whispers. The littlest tree in the whole wood could barely cry or speak out and be heard. Its branches are too cold to even shake. Its pine needles are too few to offer shelter or shade from the coming snow.
The boy looks down at his own hands and sees they have become pale and grey looking as they shiver. He can hardly bend his fingers or clutch his ragged clothes tightly about him.
The first tear from his watering eyes trickles down his cheek as he rests his head against the only soft green patch of pine on this lonely little tree. The tear is warm and as it falls from his face onto a thin cold branch, the tree seems to sigh.
The boy is too cold and too tired to go on looking for branches. Feeling the wind howling around him and all over his snow soaked rags, he closes his eyes and rests his head upon the few soft branches upon this lonely tree.
* * *

“You see? The boy is only going to wake up and snap your branches. They are brittle and dying.” An old maple groaned loudly from his spot.
“Not if I let him sleep! If I can keep him warm enough to sleep, he won’t ever wake up,” the littlest tree replied.
The older trees seemed to shake their branches, laughing in reply.
“He will wake up on Christmas morning and his mother will never wake up. He will go hungry and starve. His home will always be cold,” the old trees added. “He needs dead wood to kindle the fires in his home.”
The littlest tree in the clearing sighed and thought to himself as the boy’s tears continued to trickle down from his cheek and onto the little tree’s cold spindly branches.
* * *

The boy cries half-asleep. He is too tired and too cold to look for firewood, but too desperate not to. He can’t find his way home; his way seems lost to him. Even if he found his way home and found the path, he’d have nothing for his mother and nothing to keep the cabin warm.
“I wish…” The boy whispers in his sleep.
* * *

From someplace high above in the skies, where the clouds are higher than high and the sun always seems to shine and is always warm, the boy’s whispers were heard. The breezes had carried his whispers and thoughts to some place special and secret. The loneliest tree in the wide forest was also heard. Though they may have felt forgotten and overlooked, they were not.
As a matter of fact, Mother Nature had been listening very carefully and was busy working her magic. The seasons couldn’t change, the snow needed to fall, and the sun needed to fade into afternoon light; but she had to save the boy and the tree.
She came down from her special place as an angel of white, cloaked and hooded in fur lined robes with silver glittering sparks of light, just like the delicate flakes of snow that sprayed about her.
Her eyes were filled with tears of sadness and sorrow, if only because she had so much to do and had felt sorry for the boy and the littlest and loneliest tree below her.
She reached down with her hand, as the boy shivered in his sleep and as the littlest tree seemed willing to give up his delicate branches to the boy if he should wake, and touched the little tree with a single finger, aglow with her white magic.
The tree felt a warmth like nothing he had ever felt. A tingling sensation seeped deep into his roots and through his branches, making him all warm and cozy inside. The green of his pine needles seemed a little more green and his branches felt stronger and more supple. He felt in himself the power to grow and spring forth more fresh scented needles and thicker branches. The tree is bathing in life.
For the boy, the beautiful angel of Mother Nature slips into his dreams and gently touches the wish forming in his thoughts. The wish makes her cry tears that turn to icy crystals.
As the boy wakes, everything around him seems to glow with the light of the sun. Looking up he sees the tree that is comforting him lush and green and full of pine needles and fresh smelling pine sap. Icy crystals fall from the sky and trickle down upon the tree sheltering him and they all become something magical.
Before his eyes, the tree finds itself wrapped in silvery tinsel and glass ornaments of only the purest colors of blue, red, gold, silver, and yellow. They all glow and shine with a light that could only come from inside them. Crystals become jewels and diamonds upon the branches and more magical glitter still falls upon the tree, making it more beautiful than anything ever seen.
The tree is wrapped in stings of cranberries and holly berries. At the very top, a star from the sky seems to rest and bath everything in gentle light which passes over the clearing to show and illuminate the path home for the little boy.
Too excited and too lost with awe and wonder the boy runs down the path, no longer lost and not nearly as sad as before. He had just seen something amazing and magical and had to run home to wake Mother and tell her.
As he ran home, the boy knew he had forgotten all about the firewood he needed to fuel the stove in the little room where they ate. His Mother would be very cold and very sick. He needed to hurry home to tell her about the magic tree and the glowing light. He had to hurry or his mother might never wake up again.
The cabin was just ahead, at the widest part of the path. A glowing light shines through the window shutters and there is a distant sound of singing and wind chimes. The voice is familiar and welcoming. It is his mother’s voice and a song she has always sung as a lullaby.
The boy finds himself flying down the path, uplifted and warm. As he sweeps into the lighted room where they both eat, he sees new lighted candles upon a solid oak table that had never been there before. Upon the table were plates and bowls filled with steaming hot food of bright colors and wonderful aromas. There was a turkey at the center of the table surrounded by plates of corn, bread, fruits of all kinds, cranberry sauce, pies, cakes, and all kinds of sweet smelling candy and meats. In large glass pitchers there were juices, ciders, and fresh milk. In smaller bowls there was honey, cream, butter, and jellies. The whole table was a feast for the eyes and nose.
Seated at the head of the table was Mother, dressed in a flowing red gown lined with soft fur and quilting. There was bright rosy color in her cheeks and a smile upon her face and a sparkle in her eyes.
In the cast iron stove, there was a roaring fire burning and filling the whole cabin with light and warmth. In the corner of the room, there was a new bed with new white blankets and soft feather stuffed pillows. There was a heavy coat hanging on a hook and new shoes waiting at the foot of his bed. There was a blue wool scarf and wool gloves also waiting for him on his pillow.
There was more. The cupboards were full of more food and things. There were bundles of medicine and herbs. There were bags of flour for making mountainous loaves of bread. There were enough supplies here to last the whole of winter if needed.
Lining the walls about the room were shelves full of books, boxes full of jewelry, and amounts of gold coins. There was a wooden chest of brightly polished tools and knives for carving and woodworking as well, propped up against the wall by the window.
“Where did all this come from?” The boy asked, trembling with surprise.
“I woke up and felt a touch of someone’s fingers upon my forehead. I thought it was you, so I struggled to get up from my bed. I looked around, hoping you were near, and I saw all this,” the boy’s mother replied.
“I was lost looking for firewood. I was afraid you were never going to wake up. I meant to bring firewood, but I couldn’t hurt this tree. I just couldn’t… then it glowed with magic from up in the sky,” the boy cried.
They both look at each other, their words seem stolen from their lips for the moment. No words were really needed just now.
They didn’t feel poor, sick, cold, lonely, or sad. They had all they needed and more.
* * *

In the clearing, the loneliest tree was no longer so lonely. He was the envy of his old fathers and brothers. He was green again and decorated with delicate pearly orbs of magical glass of many colors and lights. The little animals of the woods ventured to visit his soft green boughs and take from the cranberries and fruits that encircled around his trunk, which was now strong and thick.
In the light of the star still resting upon his head, the little tree could see the old oaks and pines pulling back their menacing branches and arms away. The moaning and groaning was replaced with calm silence and soft humming.
The sky was darkening into night, but there was no fear in this clearing, for there was light and soft sounds and little animals that now had something to eat. The lonely tree now had friends and could offer them shelter and food for the cold winter nights ahead.
* * *

When Mother Nature had been asked what the little boy had wished and dreamed, she felt her eyes filling with tears. Her whole body trembled and shook with sadness and remorse. She didn’t want to remember the wish, for she had felt such guilt for not granting it.
When pressed to answer, Mother Nature finally whispered.
“He wished that no-one had to die.”
When asked about what she had offered the boy instead, she brightened.
“I gave him and his mother hope.”