Happy Sunday to everyone. While technically it’s the first day of a new week, around our house, Sunday is the last day of the week. It’s often a day for rest or, as I’m fond of calling it, “puttering around the house.”

This Sunday’s puttering will involve decorating the 8’ Frasier fir in our living room. Our family went out to a local tree farm and picked out my favorite kind of Christmas tree – tall and chubby. And now the whole place smells amazing. 

Last week I shared some memories about my grandmothers and the mittens they made for me through the years. I heard from plenty of you this past week saying how much you enjoyed these sorts of stories, and I’m happy to keep sharing them. 

 

 

When I was in the third grade, my very best friend in the entire world was a 94-year-old blind woman. She was the elderly sister of my mother’s boss, a man who was more grandfather to me than just my mom’s employer. I called him Papa Link, and every day after school, I would walk to Papa Link’s sister’s house. 

 

 

Papa Link cooked up this little arrangement; he was always a fountain of wise ideas. He knew my mom was struggling to pay for an after-school sitter, and he knew his sister was lonely and needed a hand with small chores around the house. And so, this mutually beneficial arrangement was born. 

 

 

She had dozens of music boxes that she would let me wind up until her little dining room was a tinkling cacophony. She had a special machine for the blind that would play bird calls and tell you about the bird that made each sound. She had a cranky old cat named Blacky that hated everyone, who I was not to touch, or he would bite me. 

 

 

Every day when I would arrive, she would have me water the plants or fill Blacky’s water dish or help her sort the mail, some small chore. Then I would do my homework.

 

When I finished, she would tell me stories while we played tic-tac-toe, or we would knit. (I was always amazed that she could knit by feel alone.)

My most treasured memories of Candace are Christmas memories. Once she lost her eyesight, she could no longer take the stairs to the second floor, and so it was blocked off; a mysterious land at the top of the stairs that I was forbidden to enter.

But each December, my mom would ascend the stairs and open the creaky door at the top to bring down a large chest, ready for the next day.

 

After school the following day, Candace would let me open the chest, which was full of old Christmas decorations. I was allowed to unwrap and handle each decoration carefully.

 

 

Candace didn’t have Christmas trees anymore; instead, she would let me hang the decorations wherever I could find a spot to hang them.

 

There would be delicate glass icicles hanging from the windowsills, faded glass baubles with the glitter all tarnished hanging from the string of Christmas lights my mom would hang in the archway in the dining room, and slim tin icicles hung along the bookshelves.

 

Candace would put records on with Christmas music I had never heard on the radio. It was always children’s choirs singing carols or beautiful pipe organs playing a Christmas concert in some great cathedral. Sometimes it was some guy named Perry Como or Dean Martin, names that I only became familiar with later in life as an adult.

 

When mom would come to pick me up from work after Candace and I had decorated, Mom would bring a box of Perry’s Peppermint Stick Ice Cream with her. 

 

Instead of scooping it from the carton like you normally do, you unfolded the paper carton and sliced the ice cream. Inside each rectangle of green ice cream was the shape of a Christmas tree made with white ice cream and crushed candy canes. 
 

 

Candace passed away two years after I began spending time with her. She died peacefully in her sleep; I was heartbroken. I had lost my best friend. Her death was the first meaningful loss in my life and the first funeral I was ever allowed to attend. 

 

And while she’s been gone for decades, her love and friendship live on in my life every single day. She instilled in me a great love of Christmas cactuses. I, too, can knit just by feel now. And it’s the time spent in her house that has caused my own home to resemble a house straight out of the 50s. 

 

When we open the box with all of our Christmas ornaments this afternoon, there nestled among the Hallmark ornaments and homemade ornaments from school will be carefully wrapped tiny glass icicles, a handmade set of the 12 days of Christmas ornaments in felt, glass baubles from the 40s whose glitter is still tarnished, and slim red, blue, silver and gold tin icicles. 

And as I hang them on our tree, the Christmas lights will suddenly become blurry as I remember my best friend who shared her love and Christmas treasures with me.