The true spirit of Christmas is right beside you

Appeared Dec. 25, 2006

He had Christmas under control - and then the letter came.
It was from his great-aunt. Stop by, she wrote, if you have a little time. I'll make us some Christmas tea.
He didn't want to go. She was old. She was crippled from a stroke. He wanted to remember her as she was when he was little, when she was the life of the party at Christmas time.
But in the end, his guilt won out and begrudgingly he drove from the suburbs to her house in the older part of town.
He hardly remembers walking up to her door. He felt disembodied. But then, he rang the bell.
“And just as I was thinking I should turn around and go, I heard the rattle of the china in the hutch against the wall. The triple beat of two feet and a crutch came down the hall.”
There was the click of the latch and the door opened. There she stood, his old great-aunt, tiny and fragile with a brace on her leg.
She wore thick glasses and her eyes seemed bigger behind them and were milky like old eyes often are. But as soon as she recognized her great-nephew, those old eyes lit up as if they were young again.
“Come in! Come in! She laughed the words. She took me by the hand. And all my fears dissolved away as if by her command.
“We went inside and then before I knew how to react, before my eyes and ears and nose was Christmas past, alive, intact!”
Christmas was spilled around the room. There were wooden soldiers and a porcelain nativity scene - and the room smelled of oranges and cinnamon and pine.
“Like magic I was 6 again, deep in a Christmas spell. Steeped in the million memories that the boy inside knew well.
“And here among old Christmas cards so lovingly displayed, a special place of honor for the ones we kids had made. And there, beside her rocking chair, the center of it all, my great Aunt stood and said how nice it was I'd come to call.”
Nervousness, excitement and guilt were all twisting around inside him so he began blathering about the weather and other impersonal topics. She listened patiently, but when she could get a word in, she smiled and said, “What's new?”
As if those two words gave him permission to be himself, he relaxed and opened up. He told her about his life and she told him about hers, about how the stroke had changed it.
She spoke with candor and humor about her physical limitations. Then suddenly, as if able-bodied, she got out of her rocking chair and scurried to the kitchen to brew the Christmas tea.
“I sat alone with feelings that I hadn't felt in years. I looked around at Christmas through a thick hot blur of tears. And the candles and the holly she'd arranged on every shelf, the impossibly good cookies she still somehow baked herself.
“But these rich and tactile memories became quite pale and thin when measured by the Christmas my great Aunt kept deep within. Her body halved and nearly spent, but my great Aunt was whole. I saw a Christmas miracle, the triumph of a soul.
“The triple beat of two feet and a crutch came down the hall, the rattle of the china in the hutch against the wall. She poured two cups. She smiled and then she handed one to me. And then we settled back and had a cup of Christmas tea.”
***

Father Mike Ausperk told that story at Christmas Eve Mass at St. Joe's several years ago. It has haunted me since.
Father Mike is now at St. Vincent de Paul in Cleveland. I called to ask him about it.
It was a story called “A Cup of Christmas Tea,” he told me.
It was written 25 years ago by Tom Hegg, who was then a 29-year-old teacher in Minnesota. His pastor had asked him to write something for the church's 125th anniversary.
I tracked down the author in Eden Prairie, Minn., where he still teaches drama at Breck, a private school affiliated with the Episcopal Church.
“It's based on my grandmother and my great-aunt,” Hegg said. “We lived with them when I was little. It was a big Victorian house in Minneapolis. My grandmother lived on the second floor and my great-aunt lived on the third floor.”
The book has sold 1.7 million copies and remains a holiday favorite. I recently spotted it on the table of Christmas books at Barnes & Noble.
“You wouldn't believe how many people say, ‘You have to be talking about my mom,’” Hegg said.
Or, in my case, my grandma. This is our first Christmas without her. She died last January. And, although I can no longer have a cup of Christmas tea with her, I can still think about her when I do.