A Cup of Comfort Stories for Christmas by Editors of Adams Media

Author:Editors of Adams Media
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christmas, holidays, stories
Publisher: F+W Media
Published: 2011-11-21T00:00:00+00:00

Santa Wore Cowboy Boots

By Donna Volkenannt

WHEN MY SON, Erik, was nine years old, he taught me a lesson I will never forget.

That year, my husband, Walt’s, job transferred from my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, to Fort Huachuca, Arizona. At first, leaving the Midwest for another part of the United States seemed like an adventure. I felt enchanted with the stately mountains, the vast desert, and the wide, Arizona sky.

Our children Julie and Erik loved being able to ride their bikes year-round and having a yard they didn’t need to mow. Decorative rocks and cacti landscaped our “Southwestern” front yard. Mostly dry dirt covered the back, except for a sprinkling of mesquite trees, which were about the size of holly bushes back home.

On weekends, we explored our new surroundings. We hiked the Coronado Mountains and visited the historic towns of Tucson, Tombstone, and Bisbee. On one outing we ventured across the border to Nogales, Mexico, where we bought gifts from street vendors. In Nogales, a trio of raven-haired teenaged girls dashed up to Erik and rubbed the top of his light blond head.

When I asked, “Why are you doing that?” one girl yelled, “For good luck!” over her shoulder as she ran giggling down the street.

That small gesture made me realize how different our new home was from Missouri, where children with blond hair and blue eyes were as common as dogwoods in springtime.

By autumn, Walt was traveling a lot with his job. The kids busied themselves with schoolwork and their new friends, while I dealt with dust storms, scorpions, and snakes. Every day, the weather forecast sounded like a broken record: sunny and mild, sunny and mild, sunny and mild. Back home, the redbuds, sweet gums, and maples — “real trees” — would be crowned in their glorious fall colors. Even more than I missed the changing seasons, I missed my parents, my brothers and sisters, and the friends I’d left behind.

As the days grew shorter, I began to feel lonely, isolated, and depressed. I longed for the smell of fresh-cut grass, the sight of a lightning storm rolling across the evening sky, and the sound of rain cascading down the roof. One afternoon while Walt was at work and the kids were in school, I retrieved an umbrella from the bottom of a closet, dusted it off, and opened it up in the bathroom shower. Standing beneath the umbrella, I tried to imagine standing under a soft gray Missouri sky in the pouring rain. It just wasn’t the same.

Thanksgiving Day, I hit my lowest point. During a telephone conversation with my family in Missouri, my sister Kathleen reminded me of our traditional day-after-Thanksgiving shopping marathon with our kids and our youngest sister Bridget.

“It won’t be the same without you and the kids tomorrow at breakfast with Santa,” she said. “If we get snow, it’ll cut into our shopping time. Of course, you can shop all day in the great weather you have in Arizona.”

That night I didn’t even finish dinner and went to bed before the evening news.

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