Tara and Caroline brought down presents they had wrapped to put them under the tree. Peter watched their mother watching them. Before he could be asked, Peter spoke up, “There was an accident. With the car. I paid to repair it. For what it’s worth, that’s my present.” There was a long silence before Caroline said, “Thank you.” His mother nodded. Tara rolled her eyes.

“There’s something else you kids need to know,” their mother said. She continued to sit up straight, her knees pressed tight together. “There have been some extra expenses this year. It’s made things difficult. There won’t be much under the tree.”

Caroline looked at the tops of her shoes. Tara stared hard at Peter. “Yeah,” she said. “We know about that.”

Peter left the living room and went into the kitchen where his father’s radio was blaring a 1930’s recording of A Christmas Carol. The old man stood staring out at the falling snow. “They’re calling it the Blizzard of ’78,” the old man chuckled. “Historic storm.” He slipped an untied necktie under his collar.

Peter snapped the radio off. Tara’s voice flooded the room.

“I can’t even get a blouse, because he’s got to go to college? So what do I get in two years? I getting the whole college package? Or the Caroline screw job…with room and board in this fucking stink hole?”

Tara kicked her way up the stairs and slammed her bedroom door.

Peter glared at his father. “She told them there’s no presents because of extra expenses.”

“Well, that’s your mother,” the old man stammered, “She’s going to say what she’s going to say.” He looped the tie under his chin.

“It’s your responsibility…!”

“Mine, now? Mine?” the old man shook his head. “No, no. Not mine to straighten out what you cause.”

Peter shook his head. The room seemed to be spinning. He leaned into a chair across the table from his father. “I cause?”

The old man raised his chin high and tightened the knot. “I was going to blame this on the car, but then you bring the car home, like now you’re the man of this house!”

“That was a gift!”

“Hah!” the old man waved his hands furiously. “A gift comes from consideration. You don’t strip a man of his pride with your stinking gift!” He smoothed the tie down and grabbed at his belt.

“I gave you twenty-five hundred dollars!” Peter pushed at the chair, knocking the table and rattling its contents.

“The bank gave me!” the old man roared. He pushed back on the table. “You think with your swipe of the pen…you created that money? What kind of phony pride do you have, you who hasn’t worked a day in his worthless life!”

“Who did you give that money to? Dino, the fucking bookie?”

“What’s it to you where it went? You never worked for it, you signed a bloody piece of paper! How can you care about money you never even had?”

Peter turned towards the pantry. Dead end there. He spun back to his father, ready to sail across the table at him. “I care that my sisters hate me, when they should be hating you!”

The old man rocked back on his heels. “Then you tell them. Tell them their father is a worthless bum.” He slumped against the sink, one hand on the wooden counter. “See if that makes you grander in their eyes.” He pulled the knot loose from his neck. He lurched towards the back stairs. “See if you’re telling them anything they don’t already know.”

The dramatic exit up the back stairs was followed shortly by a resplendent entrance down the front stairs. Tara followed him down and mashed out the cigarette she had been furiously smoking since her outburst. Caroline brought coats for herself and her mother. The sire of the castle ushered his family out the door, stopping to reach behind the crèche for the small statue of the baby Jesus. Peter stood at the door and watched the old man place the infant between Saint Joseph and the Virgin. He flicked at the straw and smoothed the cotton cloth. Was there ever snow in Bethlehem? Peter wondered.

The five of them trudged over the hard, slick snow, two blocks uphill to the parish church. Snow continued to fall, and church bells could be heard. Peter held one of his mother’s elbows. Caroline, on the other side, held the other. Tara blazed ahead. Their father trailed behind. An original Christmas caravan, Peter mused. We are not so much like those Wise Men who read something wondrous in the sky and set off on a journey of exploration, traversing the landscape of the soul as much as the sands of Palestine. We are not those sullen shepherds, outcasts at last given a divine invitation. The babe is not for us to hold. We are tribesman, thick-necked and used to the yoke, and if by chance we come to Bethlehem, it is only to fill the census rolls and then return home, as empty as we set out, and as unredeemed.

Tara waited at the top of the church stairs.

“Are you cold, Mom?” Peter asked.

“My toes, a little.” She patted his hand.

“You should wear better shoes for the snow, Mom,” Caroline sighed. “Your circulation.”

Tara rolled her eyes. The old man caught up, bare-headed, shoulders hunched against the wind, hands deep in pockets, gathering his coat close about him. “Not fit for man nor beast!” he groaned.

“Which are you?” they chorused. And they were able to laugh. The swirling wind stripped the tension from their backs. What’s done was done at this point. Christmas would be what it would be. Peter turned toward the church, its portals thrown open, its walls ablaze with flickering candle light. He was able to breathe deeply. He noticed a whiff of pine.

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