Christmas Wish by Linda Byler

Author:Linda Byler
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781680999013
Publisher: Good Books
Published: 2023-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

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So now, there were three of them dating. It had all happened rather fast. Sarah wasn’t actually dating, but she’d say yes, and this all before Christmas. Mam asked Sarah if Emanuel Beiler wouldn’t want to come to their Christmas dinner. Sarah looked at her mother quizzically, having seen how she’d responded to her brothers’ girlfriends coming for Thanksgiving. Mam sighed and said, well, she might as well move along with the times, since she didn’t seem to have much choice in the matter anyway.

There was the Christmas program at school to contend with, and the hope of a horse. Dat was being quiet on the subject, which meant he’d forgotten about it or was keeping a secret. Fannie said if they got anything at all, it would be a pony, probably not even a cart. Annie told her she had to stop saying such depressing things or she was going to sit in the middle of the road and cry.

Teacher Rachel’s face was pale and tight at the next play practice. She made Elam Lapp sit in his seat instead of staying behind the curtain like the rest of the class and gave his part to Rueben who was a grade below him. Elam’s face was red, and he blinked back tears of shame, but it was his own fault. He never behaved behind the curtain, and this time was the final straw for the teacher. He’d cut a hole in the white curtain, a big one, then went after Emma to cut off her schtruvels (wisps of hair).

The program was not going very well. The children were soft spoken, many of them shy. Only two or three of them spoke with the right expression. She gave them a pep talk, then went out on the porch, closed the door, and told them she wanted to be able to hear them recite their poems. There was quite a lot of self-conscious giggling, but most of them stood on the stage, squared their shoulders, opened their mouths, and spoke loudly.

Oh, it was a wonderful time of the year, just like the song. There were brightly colored candy canes with ribbon and holly, colored on both sides and put on the windows with two-sided tape. A manger scene was made out of construction paper and put on the wall between two sets of windows.

Teacher Rachel was an artist, one of the best, and the manger scene would have been much more realistic if she would have done Mary and Joseph herself, but, no, guess who drew them both? Naomi. Who was a major artistic talent in her own eyes, but her classmates weren’t so sure.

Annie told Fannie she guaranteed Joseph was not fat, the way Naomi drew him, they had nothing but manna to eat in Bible times. But Fannie corrected her, saying the manna was long gone by the time Jesus was born, and didn’t she ever listen to the preacher in church?

Annie was persistent about getting Joseph into better shape, approaching Naomi herself, who agreed, which was almost unbelievable.

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