How Santa's old pair of glasses ended
up on Prince Edward Island one Christmas Eve is a question that remains a
mystery in our family to this day. And while the children remember it well,
they still ask about those glasses every Christmas.
It was a snowy night, and big flakes of snow welcomed us on Christmas
morning when the children scampered excitedly out of bed to head to their
stockings hung by the fireplace. We could all see that Santa left presents for each
of the three children.
With housecoats and slippers on, they
opened their stockings, happily finding both an orange and apple in the toes,
and not a single lump of coal. They knew that an apple or an orange, instead of
a lump of coal, was a sign that even Santa knew how good they had been. How
lucky they were with both. They found toys and sweet treats in their stockings
too.
Amid their excitement, they looked in
the ashes of the fireplace and noticed an odd object. It was brown and rounded
and didn't look like either coal or wood. The ashes were cool as I touched it
carefully; we realized that it was an old metal case for eyeglasses. Prying the
case open, they discovered a pair of old spectacles, round with golden metal
rims. "These must be Santa's," the oldest boy exclaimed to his sister
and brother, "He must have lost them!" Clearly a pair of round
glasses was a most unusual thing to find in the ashes of a fireplace any day,
but especially on Christmas. "What should we do with them?" I asked;
to which the youngest one replied, "I suppose we could send them back to
Santa." And so the case was safely placed on the mantle, with a plan to
send them back to Santa.
Later they discovered that one of the
lenses was badly cracked. Since they were inside their case, and not being worn
when lost, I wondered out loud if
they might be an older pair, too broken to wear and
long forgotten by Santa in a coat pocket after he got his new pair. And thus
the glasses were tucked away in a wee box with a note telling how these old
glasses were found by the children amid ashes on Christmas morn.
Our grandchildren now join the holiday
gathering around that old fireplace with equal enthusiasm, and the story of
those glasses is a reminder to all looking forward to the arrival of
Christmas -- that even amid the ashes -- when one least expects to
find anything, there can be welcome surprises at Christmas, and in fact every
day.
