Sleigh bells ring, are you listening? In the lane, snow is glistening.
A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight, walking in a winter wonderland.
Gone away is the bluebird. Here to stay is a new bird.
He sings a love song as we go along, walking in a winter wonderland.
In the meadow, we can build a snowman. Then pretend that he is Parson Brown.
He'll say, "Are you married?" We'll say, "No man! but you can do the job when you're in town."
-Bing Crosby
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Christmas Eve Day
Jon was running a little behind schedule. There was a water main break near the apartment that led to a flooding issue in the building. As a result, he had to go back to his place and pick up what he and Shawn would need for the next two days before heading to Audrey's.
He was glad to have some time to himself. The past month had really messed with his head, and he was still struggling to adjust to all the changes.
Throughout December, he had frequently been mistaken for Shawn's father or Audrey's husband. Never her boyfriend, which he thought was odd. He still had not figured out what it was he was doing that made the distinction. Regardless, he found himself going along with people's assumptions and did not bother to correct them. He fully committed to the father/husband role as though it was the most natural thing in the world, and no one knew the difference. It was not natural, of course. He was neither father nor husband.
And he kept repeating to himself that he did not want to get married, and he did not want to have kids.
He did not.
He did not.
He did not!
But there must have been something about the festive season that prevented these words from taking hold. Even though he was still chanting them in his head as he walked into the living room where Audrey stood on the threshold between that room and the kitchen, he still walked up to her, put his hand around the back of her neck and greeted her with a kiss as though she was actually his wife.
Caught in the kiss, they stared at each other for a long moment, both too shocked to move.
Jon was horrified. It was one thing to hold her hand or even to hold her. That was bad enough. It was quite another to kiss her. This was breaking about every boundary imaginable.
What on earth was wrong with him?!
"I'm sorry," he finally got out, deeply mortified. "I wasn't thinking. I just-"
"It's okay, Jon, really," she said a little too brightly. Her cheeks were flushed with a crimson blush, and she had trouble meeting his gaze. She pointed to the ceiling above them. "Shawn's mistletoe. It was bound to happen."
It was true about the mistletoe. Shawn had hung the plant or something that looked like it from every conceivable place in the house. And he made its purpose very clear.
"Right," Jon said, attempting to laugh it off. When he tried to disengage his fingers from her hair, he somehow managed to get her locks tangled around his watch. He ended up having to take the timepiece off as his self-conscious tugging was hurting her head.
He was shaken, she was stunned. Thankfully, Shawn walked in and saved them from any further awkwardness.
"You're not dressed," he informed Jon with a disappointed frown. The teen was dressed as one of Santa's helpers in green and red and a hat with pointy ears glued to the side of it. And his leather jacket of course.
"Yeah, Shawn, about this," Jon wasn't ready to trade one embarrassment for another just yet. "I'm all for doin' the Toy Drive- I think it's a great idea. I just really don't wanna dress up as Santa Claus."
"You wanna be the elf?" Shawn gave him an amused look and started to laugh at the thought.
Jon looked peeved. "I don't wanna dress up period."
"Oh, come on, Jon," Audrey said, running her hand down her hair to smooth out the tangles. "It's for a good cause."
"I know," he said, already knowing how this was going to end despite his protests. "I just don't see the need to dress up."
"The shelter's Santa bailed on them," Shawn reminded him. "They need someone to do this."
"Does it have to be me?"
"I'm too short and nobody's gonna believe Audrey is Santa."
Jon bowed his head. He really did not want to do this. Audrey took his arm and leaned into him, resting her chin against his shoulder. He gave her a sideways glance.
"If you'll be Santa, I'll be your Mrs. Claus," she grinned cheekily at him.
He let out a short laugh. Propriety and boundaries had been trampled on long ago; no use trying to reestablish them now. "In that case," he grinned back, putting his arm around her waist. "Where's the suit?"
========
It was on the way to the Apple Tree Family Central Center shelter that Jon and Audrey heard for the first time how Shawn and his mother had spent a Christmas at the shelter when he was eight.
Audrey turned around in her seat and gave him a concerned look. "You stayed at a shelter?"
Shawn nodded.
Jon glanced at him in the rearview mirror. "What happened?"
The teen shrugged. "After Dad got fired from the gas station he worked at then, he didn't do anythin' but stay home drinkin' all day. Mom worked and would come home and find him passed out in a chair. Nothin' around the house had been done, so she'd start screamin' at him."
"Where were you?" his teacher asked.
"In the bathroom. When they'd start fightin' I'd take a book and my Walkman and turn on the water in the bathtub. The water and the music made it hard to hear them. Then I could read."
Jon glanced at Audrey looking deeply concerned. "How bad did the fightin' get?"
"Bad enough that Mom woke me up in the middle of the night and told me we were goin' campin'. Eddie and Stacy were waitin' for us. There were a bunch of trash bags in the car with all of our stuff."
Shawn stared out of the truck's window with a calm look on his face as he watched the cars pass by. He was not as bothered by this story as his teachers were.
"We camped out for a few days in the car but four people and their stuff is kinda cramped and it was the middle of winter- you can't keep the car runnin' all night- so Mom took us to the Apple Tree Family Central Center. We stayed there for three weeks."
"And you were there at Christmas?" Audrey asked. She was ready to crawl into the extended cab of the truck to hug him and hold him close.
"Yeah, I mean, it was better than what we'd have had at home. Mom would always get a tiny little tree that she'd work real hard to make look nice then my dad would destroy it when he got mad. But the shelter had a nice big one. Decorated real pretty."
At this point in the story, Jon pulled over and parked in the first parking lot available. He turned around as much as he could. Like Audrey, he was ready to climb into the back with the teen.
"Shawn, what do you mean Chet would destroy the tree?"
Shawn shrugged. "Dad would get drunk, they'd start fightin', then Dad would destroy her tree to get back at her."
Jon grabbed Audrey's knee. She leaned over and he whispered, "I've never heard about stuff like this before."
She nodded looking deeply upset.
"The thing about the shelter, as nice as it was, they didn't really do anythin' for the kids there for Christmas. I guess because there were just so many of us." He pressed his nose up against the window glass looking at something across the street. "But Mom brought our gifts from home with us. Us and a couple of other kids were the only ones who got anythin' that year. It wasn't much but at least we got somethin'. I always felt bad about that. That's why I wanna go. Make sure every kid gets somethin'."
Audrey turned back to face the front. She put her hands over her face for a moment then let them fall to her lap. Jon could see the tears in her eyes. He reached over for her hand, then looked at Shawn.
"Shawn," he hated to bring this up, but he didn't know when they would have another moment like this. "Your dad ever hit your mom? Or you?"
The teen turned to Jon and stared at him with a blank expression as though he didn't understand why his story would spark such a question. "I dunno," he said eventually. "I didn't stick around durin' the fights so I dunno."
"You know if he hit you."
Shawn shook the hair out of his eyes.
"You can tell us, Shawn," Jon said gravely, reaching over the back of the seat trying to reach him.
He gave his teacher a funny look and leaned forward. "I know I can."
"You didn't answer my question," his teacher said quietly.
Shawn studied his face for a while. It was weird. Jon was starting to look more like a dad every day. He smiled at him and slapped his hand. "We're gonna be late, Jon. I don't wanna be late and disappoint all those kids waitin' for us."
Jon pursed his lips frustrated and disappointed that the teen clearly did not trust him as much as he hoped he would.
Audrey squeezed his hand and whispered, "He just isn't ready to talk yet."
He squeezed her hand back, then let go, and started the truck back up.
Jon couldn't stop thinking about Shawn being in a shelter and the reason behind it. He didn't utter another complaint about being Santa and put everything he had into playing the role.
It surprised Jon how satisfying that role was. With a higher quality, less itchy costume it would have been every better.
While Jon was asking the younger kids what they wanted for Christmas, Shawn was about as enthusiastic as any teen could possibly be while wearing candy stripe tights and pointy shoes with jingle bells on the toes. The teens who approached for their gifts, skeptical and angry, brightened a bit when he approached them if for no reason other than a chance to mock him.
"You want me to put these somewhere for you?" he asked standing a way off from the group of sullen teens.
"Those aren't for us," snapped one of them. "They're just pity gifts that some adult threw in their shopping cart to make themselves feel better. They could be for anyone."
Shawn wrinkled his nose as he recognized the attitude. He had spoken very similar words before. He regarded the older teen with sympathy then looked at the top of the gift as though he was just now seeing the tag attached to it. "Yeah, you're right. This is for a Juan Alvarez anyway."
As Shawn turned away the boy stepped forward with a confused look on his face. "Hey wait? Who did you say?"
"Juan Alvarez?"
The teen looked stunned. "That's me."
Shawn pretended to be surprised. "Oh?"
"Yeah." Juan looked at his group then took another step toward Shawn. "Maybe I can take a look? I'm givin it back if it's a pity gift."
"It's yours," Shawn shrugged. "Do what you want."
Juan unwrapped the package. The teen stared into the box as tears began to fill his eyes. "No way, man."
"What is it?" a curious member of his group asked.
With great reverence, Juan put his hand into the box and lifted out a brand-new Wilson NFL license football with a Steelers logo on it.
"This is what I wanted," the teen whispered. "I played tight end back at my old school before we ended up here. We had to leave our old place so quick I didn't get to grab my ball. Football is the one thing I'm real good at and I haven't played in two years. Can't play without a ball. Don't got no money for a ball."
"Whoa," breathed one of the girls in the group. "Hey, kid," she said to Shawn. "You got something for me?"
Shawn held his hands out apologetically. "I just help hand out stuff. The big man," he turned and pointed to Jon. "Will have your gift."
With sudden excitement and a change in attitude, the teens followed Shawn while Juan stayed behind to show his mother and little sister the football he'd been praying for.
Audrey thoroughly enjoyed her role as Mrs. Claus. She loved to talk to the little ones and watch their joy at opening gifts. For the adults, the only real gift she could give was to listen to their stories and allow them the chance to vent. From time to time, she would steal glances at Jon and Shawn. The way they worked so well together as Santa and elf warmed her heart.
========
After overstaying the intended hour by three, the trio finally headed home. There was still a lengthy day ahead to prepare for the next day. Part of that preparation was a baking marathon.
With his thoughts still on the shelter and Shawn, Jon didn't complain when they went home and spent almost four hours in the kitchen baking and icing everything Shawn wanted for Christmas even though he did not want to bake any more than he wanted to play Santa. But since the latter turned out so well, he decided to shelve his doubts and play along with Shawn and Audrey as though he knew what he was doing.
Shawn had no idea what he was doing either so Jon was hardly alone there.
It wasn't so much that the recipes were hard to follow or that Audrey's helpers struggled with following directions it was just that with three people in small space with multiple cookies recipes surrounding them, it was no surprise that chocolate chips ended up in the gingerbread mix.
It did surprise Jon that so much flour ended up on the floor, on them, and somehow in the living room. He was even more surprised when a bag of flour exploded on Shawn when he opened it.
So was Shawn. He decided next time not to squeeze the bag so hard when he opened one.
What really got Jon was the dough on the ceiling. He had no idea how or when that occurred. Neither did Shawn or Audrey.
Shawn sat on the kitchen counter with a spoonful of cookie dough in his mouth as the warm aroma of baking cookies filled the air. Audrey took the bowl away from him to get her own bit of raw dough. Shawn grinned then made a grab for the bowl and took it back.
"I'm surprised this stuff doesn't make people sick. It seems so much richer than after they're cooked," Jon said dipping his own spoon into the bowl.
"Would you two get your own?" Shawn protested, twisting around to keep them way. Jon managed to take a final swipe at the dough and get most of it, much to Shawn's chagrin.
Once the first batch of cookies was out of the oven the next batch went in. They repeated this process over and over until they ran out of room to cool the trays. Plates of cookies were piled in every empty space of the kitchen.
Shawn, Jon, and Audrey stood by the oven staring at their overflowing creations. There was almond spritz cookies, gingerbread, vanilla-butter sugar cookies, chocolate thumbprints, cranberry shortbread, Italian rainbow cookies, coconut clouds, snickerdoodles, peppermint meltaways, chocolate-covered cherry cookies, rum balls, and macaroons.
"How many people were we gonna feed when we planned this?" Jon asked her, wondering how a simple baking project grew so out of hand. There was not one bit of surface that was visible in the kitchen or the living room.
Dumbfounded, Audrey shook her head. "We wanted to do all the cookies Shawn wanted, but I think we should have halved the recipes."
"What's the problem?" Shawn asked as he went around sampling their creations. "We've got three days' worth of cookies here. Maybe."
Jon rolled his eyes. At the rate Shawn was eating, they wouldn't last that long.
As the last of the cookies came out of the oven, Jon and Shawn had to carry plates of baked goods into Audrey's bedroom to clear space on the kitchen table for decorating the sugar cookies and gingerbread.
"Oh, no," Jon groaned as he sat down and studied the materials in front of him. "It's another art project."
"It's just addin' some clothes to naked people," Shawn remarked as he prepared to give Santa camo-colored pants. "It's not gonna hang in the Lou-Ver."
Jon gave him a funny look. "The what?"
"You know that art place in Rome."
"Paris. And it's pronounced Loov-ruh."
"It's an art place, right?"
"Right," Jon replied as he skeptically picked up a small tube of icing. "I just didn't know you knew what the Louvre is. I'm impressed."
Shawn shrugged. "I heard you and Audrey talkin' about it."
Jon thought about this for a moment and then said, "I see I've been goin' about how to teach you all wrong."
Shawn stopped what he was doing and gave Jon a quizzical look.
"Apparently, if I want you to learn somethin'," he explained. "I just tell Audrey in a private conversation since you seem to learn so much when you eavesdrop."
The teen had the decency to look embarrassed. Then he grinned cheekily. "It's your job as a teacher to find out your students learnin' styles. Glad you finally figured mine out."
Jon caught Audrey's eye, laughed, and shook his head.
"Hey," Shawn said as he gave Santa a bullet proof vest and sunglasses. "Next time you two talk, could it please be about somethin' interestin' and NOT Miss Tompkins."
Jon rolled his eyes and Audrey just grinned.
The kitchen was a disaster, but with the three of them working together, they put it back into place in less than an hour. A trip to the garage to get a ladder was necessary to get the dough off the ceiling. Jon had to practically pull Shawn off the ladder to stop him from eating the dough he retrieved.
Jon and Audrey brought all the cookies back into the kitchen for the day, still unsure of what to do with all the baked goods. As Jon walked past the kitchen table on his way to change for the final event of the day, a plate of cookies left on the table caught his eye.
"Aud," he caught her by the arm as she started to walk past him. "Did you see this?"
Audrey looked at what he was pointing to and saw three gingerbread people on a white plate. One was wearing a brown jacket with aviator shades and a motorcycle helmet. One was very obviously female with long red hair almost down to the toes. The cookie was dressed in a white top and black pants. The third cookie was in the middle of the other two with a black jacket and jeans. Great care had been taken with its floppy, center-parted hair style that was extremely popular among teen boys at the time.
She wrapped an arm around Jon and leaned into him. "No one touches those cookies," she told him.
"Yeah," he agreed, leaning his cheek against the top of her head. Jon stared at the cookies for a moment longer. They reminded him of a kid's drawing of his family.
With a sigh and smile Jon began to realize how significant this month had been to Shawn. He worried that if things didn't turn out the way the teen wanted it would be more devastating to him than what he'd already been through with his parents.
Unfortunately, there wasn't anything Jon could do about that now. To make up for it, he made sure to put all of himself into the rest of the day.
The trio headed out to the Matthews to meet with a group to spread some holiday cheer in the neighborhood (and brought cookies with them). He didn't complain once when the Christmas caroling with that group went on longer than he would have preferred as he didn't sing at all.
He just enjoyed being part of a family picture.
========
Later on, we'll conspire as we dream by the fire
To face unafraid, the plans that we've made walking in a winter wonderland.
Sleigh bells ring, are you listening? In the lane, snow is glistening.
A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight walking in a winter wonderland.
Gone away is the bluebird. Here to stay is a new bird. He sings a love song as we go along walking in a winter wonderland.
=====
Part 2 will be up tomorrow.
Thank you so much for reading.