was really sweating it this year when my two older kids came up with seemingly impossible Christmas lists. Already-skeptical Calvin wanted David Freese from the St. Louis Cardinals to visit our house on Christmas. Clara wanted a giant seashell.
Her request sounded simple enough, until I really started looking. In landlocked Indiana, it turns out those things aren’t so easy to find. I tried ordering a conch online from an obscure company, but the order didn’t seem to want to go through. I emailed my father-in-law in Halifax, Nova Scotia, hoping that his proximity to a rocky coastline would improve his odds of finding a “big seashell” before he got on a plane bound for Indy.
With just a few days to go and no seashell in sight, I made a few desperate calls from my desk at work – aquariums, department stores, even the Children’s Museum. No luck. Then, my co-worker Angie appeared. She had a seashell at home and would be happy to donate to the Clara cause. I was so relieved I hugged her!
The next day, Angie showed up with not one but TWO huge, beautiful seashells. That evening, a box arrived. That obscure web company did get my order after all. I unpacked yet another pretty, pink, polished shell. Then Ian’s dad arrived from Canada, bearing – you guessed it – another gorgeous shell.
Clara’s face when she opened a box of FOUR seashells Christmas morning was priceless. The collection was so spectacular it inspired her to rearrange and decorate her entire bedroom, peeling fairy decals off the walls and doing her best to create a more serene seaside theme.
The Freese wish was tougher, but I decided to recruit a friend who happens to be a Cardinals fan to do the deed – over the phone on Christmas Eve. “Cal!” I called to him after the phone rang. “It’s some guy named David?” His demeanor on the phone was somewhere between shock and awe. We got him to put the phone on speaker so we could hear our friend “Mr. Freese” delivering the most perfect Christmas message we could imagine and encouraging Cal to keep working hard at his baseball skills. As he hung up, Calvin’s hand stayed suspended in the air and his jaw hung open. All evening, he kept picking up his David Freese poster, saying to anyone in earshot, “That’s the guy who called me!”
Next year I hope they ask for Leggos and Barbies. But this year, I am a believer in the Santa-power of the people around us.
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!