A Sugarplum Christmas by Viola Shipman

Author:Viola Shipman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Graydon House Books
Published: 2022-08-25T19:50:30+00:00

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I am seated by the window at one of my favorite coffee shops in downtown Grand Rapids. I come here nearly every day for the coffee. I live for their holiday latte, which has a touch of eggnog and gingerbread. It is Christmas in a mug, without being cloyingly sweet.

But, mostly, I come here for the memories. The less painful ones, anyway.

They roast their own beans, and the entire place—even from a mile away—smells like coffee. They also bake their own goodies: glorious streusel-topped blueberry and caramel apple muffins, scones, breads and cookies.

The shop, located in a tight, two-story building that used to be a home, smells exactly like my grandparents’ house did during the holidays: sugar, and spice and everything nice.

My laptop dings. My heart pings.

Nice.

I know the exact moment I stopped being nice. But why did I allow the pain to take root, then consciously water the tendrils and let them take over my soul?

A car honks, and I look up.

My seat faces an intersection, one that looks akin to a very complicated Venn diagram, streets zigzagging in four nonsensical directions from the center point in front of me. There is an accident here nearly every day.

When I look out, especially on a winter’s day like this, I can still picture the time when horse-drawn carriages trotted up and down the streets, locals dressed to the nines on their way to grand holiday parties on Heritage Hill.

My mind whirs to the nutcrackers. I took pictures of them around town before I came here. I placed the king in front of the grand steps leading to the city’s public library. Snow was gently falling, and the photo looks as if it had been taken two hundred years ago in some faraway land. The rocking horse I placed in front of the hobby farm at the local zoo, goat and sheep in the background. At the last minute, I found an acorn, and I placed it in the horseman’s mouth, careful not to scrape his painted face. I want to show how incredibly constructed these works of art truly are and how well they’ve been maintained. I uploaded the images when I settled in at the coffee shop.

“Ma’am?”

I look up. A girl in an apron stands before me. She looks twelve. She is all dewy skin, sparkly eyes and no wrinkles.

I am a “ma’am” now. When did that happen? But I already know: it happened a long time ago, when I lost all hope. I am a “ma’am” to the younger generation: a nondescript woman of a certain age. I glance at my reflection in the window. I’ve let my hair go gray, and it’s not that stunning silver so many women are blessed to have, but instead the dingy color of an old car bumper. My readers are as red as my too-round cheeks, I am not wearing makeup and I am sporting a nubby sweater that is incredibly comfortable but not what anybody might ever describe as attractive.

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