It was the last Sunday before Christmas, and I was just starting to get into the mood.
As a deeply nostalgic, sentimental human, I require certain seasonal harbingers and talismen to trigger that numinous burst of warmth from deep in the fibers of my being: the Christmas Spirit.
I’ve always loved Christmas. It’s a holiday full of songs and stories designed to make us remember we have heartstrings and play on them.
Years ago when I was teaching high school English and analyzing storytelling for a living, I created a Christmas week assignment of analyzing the iconic Bass/Rankin Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. It’s impossible to exaggerate the degree to which that movie, along with its claymation companion, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, have cultivated my internal emotional landscape.
We began the project by writing the essential elements of Christmas stories on the board: snow, sadness, presents, people who feel lonely, Christmas trees, someone who doesn’t believe, and someone who ends up saving Christmas. I told my students that if they could write a good Christmas or high school movie, there would always be a market for it.
I have always loved the Island of Misfit Toys. And not because I’ve felt like a misfit, because I really haven’t. I think it’s because from a young age I had some of my first empathy experiences when I saw the sadness of those characters on the screen. Their explanations of why no child wants them, the resignation that Santa wasn’t going to come again this year, the hollow hope that “maybe next year”, and finally, their rescue.
Seeing such sad people (okay, toys–but I’ve always known toys are really real) have their one and only heartbreak turned into joy is the magic of Christmas distilled. It’s the message that just a little bit of kindness, comfort, or care can change everything. That’s all those misfit toys are ever going to need: the love of a little girl or boy. And they are going to get that love thanks to Santa Claus.
I could definitely write a paper–maybe a whole dissertation–on Christmas stories. Which is maybe why I keep waiting for the happy ending to this story I’m here to tell today. Fables, fairy tales and Christmas stories have trained me that there will be, if not a happy ending, then at least a denouement that somehow offers, in its sweetness and unexpectedness, a sense of something precious or poignant coming out of it.
So here’s what happened. Late in January of 2021 I had packed up most of my treasured Christmas decorations and they were hanging around the apartment in their boxes. Our small tree was still decorated because I lived with laid back women and no one was in a rush to take it down.
One day something in me–some tricky sense of responsibility or “what’s right”–told me I should take down that tree, pack up the decorations, put them in the car, and drive them down to Pennsylvania the next time I went, to live in my storage unit until the following December.
For years now I’ve had the habit of packing away my Christmas things and saying to myself: who knows where I’ll be when I unpack these again? What will have changed? Who will have died? Will I have finished my book? Lost weight? And most importantly at the onset of 2021, where will I be living? In what home, in what neighborhood, in what conditions will I be living next year?
The plan was that in November 2021 my boyfriend and I would move in together. I had been living a nomadic life in a single ladies apartment under the elevated subway in Williamsburg for a few years after a divorce from not only my husband, but my house, yard, garden, town with all its amazing Christmas traditions, and my beloved job teaching books, plays, movies, and poetry to teenagers.
I packed those decorations: remains from my happy childhood like the wooden paint-by-number ornaments we made in 1974 with my mom and grandmother and the clay nativity scene characters and their barn; along with traces from my over 30 years of independent adulthood during which I lovingly collected felted elves and pine trees, Swedish Santas and wooden horses, and the adorable snow-tipped porcupine I got in the faculty gift exchange one year.
I thought next year, if all goes well, I’ll unpack these in my new home. Our home.
January 2021 was still pandemic-ish, and the restaurant where I worked was closed. I spent most of my time in Fort Greene where my boyfriend lived, and like many Brooklynites, I had to move my car on a regular basis. That first pandemic January, one of my best friends decided to move back to her native Copenhagen, and I drove her to the airport to say goodbye. I found a good parking spot when I got back to Fort Greene, one that would last for a couple days until I drove to PA.
When I went to the car to get something a day or two later, there were some familiar papers on the ground near the car. Hmmm. Weird. Did I not notice they had fallen out? (Confession: my car was definitely one of my storage units.) I pulled the door handle and it opened. Hmmm. Had I already pressed the clicker? Probably. You remember that pandemic daze. I often didn’t put a lot of conscious thought into my quotidian actions. I got inside the car and things seemed weird. Jumbled up. And there was a slightly different smell than usual.
Upon increasingly panicked inspection I discovered some very random items strewn around the back seat. Bear Spray. Cigarette butts. A knit cap. And a single glove that definitely wasn’t mine.
Whoa. I guess someone had been in there. Maybe sleeping there. It was cold out and I definitely didn’t begrudge them the shelter. But my mind quickly sped. Had they broken in? No, let’s face facts. The key of the 2005 car my parents handed down to me hadn’t been working too well lately, and the last time I parked, I probably didn’t notice that when I pushed the clicker, nothing happened. I had left my car open. Right next to Fort Greene Park. Totally my fault. No biggie. My bad.
It wasn’t until the following day, as I was digging the car out of a giant snow bank to head to PA, that I remembered about all my Christmas ornaments. I tossed through the jumbled contents of the way back and eventually discovered that all of my favorite ornaments, all the heirlooms, both of my cardboard angels, as well as the delicate china faced thumbelina sized angels from my father’s childhood, were gone. Gone. (I admit, before whatever happened had happened, it did already kind of look like someone very messy lived back there. I guess that’s why I didn’t notice what was missing right away.) Pieces from the clay nativity set were strewn around the car. I found random baby sheep, shepherds, eventually Mary, Joseph, and even the baby Jesus and the manger. Thank the Lord! That was something. Something symbolic. Some story. No? The Lord was saved!
In the coming days I posted signs around the location asking if anyone had seen a random pile of tossed aside heirloom ornaments. I checked with the Fort Greene park rangers. Honestly, I had this fantastical thought that an unhoused person had gotten a feeling of Christmas by taking my beloved treasures and using them to decorate a tree in the park. Alas, the ornaments were never found, though I did have a sympathetic neighbor text and offer me some of the ornaments they were getting rid of. It was a very kind gesture, but it wasn’t exactly an Island of Misfit Toys rescue.
It would be easier to say I was robbed, but the truth is, I left my car open. I spent a lot of time thinking about the life and mental state of the person who did this. I have nothing but a sympathetic, confused, sad heart for them. I’m also dying of curiosity what the heck they did with all my stuff.
And why, particularly, did they keep the wise men and the camels?