Merry Christmas Already

"Whatcha up to, Mac?"

"Ho, Bertie. I'm just a'contemplatin' these here boats."

"You going to come home soon and finish making dinner? You got everything cut up and ready to cook. Did you forget what you were doing?"

"Naw, honey. I just got a little emotional. Here it is nearly Christmas and there's folks without a tree that won't get any gifts. There's folks that don't even have family and have to sit the whole thing out. And suddenly it was like there was a pair o' pliers around my heart and they was gettin' such a twist put on 'em I thought I was gonna seize up. So I came out for a walk."

"Mhm," Big Bertha said. "And here you are, getting philosophical about some boats, eh? And didn't put on your coat or your hat or your gloves. And still in your houseshoes. And shivering. What you need is a little of that stew you were making, served up piping hot. Let's go home now. I could use some myself."

Little Mac took her hand and it was a good thing he did because he was perched on a rock with damp seaweed on top and when he went to stand up he slipped and did a little dance and would have fallen in the water had Big Bertha not whipped him up onto the shore.

Before he let her escort him home, however, Little Mac had her contemplate the three boats with him. "You see they're like a Christmas tree, green and red and with a white one on top for the angel. They're like a Christmas tree for anyone who sees it. I wish everyone could see it. I wish I could give that gift to everyone. I wish no one was lonely, not ever again."

As they set off together, Big Bertha felt something in his pocket against her and winked at him and said, "What you got down there, sweetie, something to keep your wife from being lonely?"

"It's a little package of smoked deer sausage," said Little Mac. "Everett Whynacht give it to me. When he stopped laughin' at me. He said to put it in the stew if I ever got back to it. He said Merry Christmas already."

He pulled the little parcel of butcher paper from his pocket and handed it to Big Bertha. "Don't be lonely," he said to her. "Don't you ever be lonely. Not ever again. Merry Christmas already."

21 December 2017
Texas Jim
Prospect, Nova Scotia
www.granitecoast.ca