This is the final installment of a story I wrote long ago. It was first published in “The Christian Home and School,” a publication of Christian Schools International.

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The Monday before Christmas, Christmas Eve

All day the Sheppard sisters had been battling traffic and crowds of last minute shoppers. Now as evening approached, the wash still needed to be done. “Why dontcha fix this?!” Nell snapped at Doris and flung a shabby sock in her direction. Nell had found a couple of large red and white Christmas stockings which the sisters had hung on the mantle every Christmas Eve. The stitching around the black Santa’s sleigh with the name “Doris” embroidered on it was coming undone as a result of its annual encounter with the Sheppards’ washing machine. It was Christmas Eve and Nell felt pressured to get the tattered stockings loaded and hung on the mantle over the dormant fireplace. The stockings were about the only bit of Christmas tradition the tired old sisters had left.

Nell had been getting grouchier as Christmas day inched closer. Today’s shopping excursion had just about put her over the edge. Doris remembered the days when Christmas shopping was accomplished by walking the block-and-a-half to Casey’s Corner Store. Of course, Casey’s had closed years ago when his son, Al, finally retired. He practically gave the building away to a group who used it for a church. But like everything else religious in Nell and Doris Sheppard’s lives, the congregation scattered and the building on the corner eventually deteriorated. It went from a place of worship… to a video store… to a derelict apartment building… to an empty lot.

Even though they were working on catching up on the laundry that they do so religiously on Monday’s, neither Nell nor Doris had forgotten about their curious neighbors. It had not gone unnoticed by them that every candle on the rag wreath, except the big white one in the center, were ‘lit’ with splotches of yellow.

“Why don’t they close their curtains, anyway?” By now, it was dark outside. Nell, bad mood and all, was back on the lookout while working on a basket of wool socks. “They’re just inviting anyone who wants, to take a peak,” she said. Then accepting their invitation, said, “Look over there, Doris.” Doris obediently looked up from re-stitching Santa’s sleigh. “There’s somethin’ glowing over there,” Nell whispered as if the Davidsons could hear her.

“Fire!” Doris put her hands over her mouth.

“Nonsense.” Nell stated flatly. “They’ve just got some candles or the fire place burning. I can see shadows…” She paused, and took a deep breath. “It looks kinda spooky over there.” Radiating through the window’s rag wreath, a curious aura of light reached across the snowy street toward the sisters. Doris suddenly envied everything about those people across the street – their friends, their fireplace and even the whatever-it-was in their window.

Nell broke in with, “Maybe they’re part of some kind of weird cult…?” Her voice trailed off.

“Stop it, Nell! You’re scaring me!” Nell was scaring herself, so she dropped the subject and went back to her socks.

That night, the Monday before Christmas, Christmas Eve, while the Sheppard sisters washed, fixed and folded their socks, they got their holiday gift. It came to them when the transformer on the electric pole in front of the next-door neighbor’s house blew up.

Like the CRACK!! of thunder in a June thunderstorm, the sound ricocheted along the canyon of houses on Hillside Avenue. When it crashed into the Sheppards’ living room they jumped simultaneously, like two kids in the backseat of a school bus zipping down a bumpy road. The socks in their hands went flying. The lights in the house flashed and went out.

Without saying a word, they sat in the blackness, hearts pounding. For the first time in an age, they didn’t know what was going on outside. For the first time in her lifetime, Nell was speechless. For the first time, Doris realized that she yearned for something to fill the lonely void inside her.

After some time, a loud pounding on the front door made them jump again.

“Ohhhh boooy!” Doris was the first to break the silence. “What’s that now?” she whispered. Slowly, Nell fumbled through the darkness toward the front door with Doris cowering behind her. Together they peeked through the curtain on the window next to the door. They spied someone bundled up standing on the front porch with a flashlight. Cautiously and against her better judgement, Nell opened the door a crack with Doris craning her neck to see around her sister.

The wide-eyed, worried looks that greeted the bundled up woman on the porch prompted her to reassure them, “Don’t be afraid. It’s me, Ruth, your neighbor, from across the street.” The sisters greeted her with silence. “Looks like the power’s going to be out for a while,” she continued with a warm disarming smile. “My husband just finished baking some bread right before the it went out and we were wondering if ….” Doris straightened up a stood next to Nell in the doorway. “… you’d like to come over and share the bread and cozy, warm fireplace with us. I’m on my way to get some of the other neighbors, too.” The sisters glanced at each other and nodded.

“Good!” Ruth said. “We’re right there across the street.” She pointed in the direction of her house – as if Doris and Nell didn’t already know. “Just look for the strips of cloth in the window.” She grinned and rolled her eyes. “It’s supposed to be an advent wreath.” We have a real one, too, with real candles. We put it on the porch – to light the way.” She turned to go, then turned back. “You can help us light the Christ candle when you get there.” Ruth winked. “It’s Christmas Eve, you know.”

“Uh-huh…,” said Nell, having no clue what the neighbor was talking about. The sisters wondered more than ever about their curious neighbors, what with rags and wreaths and bread and a Christ candle, and all. “Uh – well sure,” Nell fumbled for words. “After we take care of our socks and –“

”Forget about the socks!” Doris insisted. “We’re going now!” She grabbed their coats off the hooks by the door, jammed Nell’s into her hands and and said, “Let’s go!” And…. off they marched across the dark street looking for strips of cloth and a light to brighten up their dark world.

This is the third part of a Christmas story I wrote some time ago.

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The Second Monday Before Christmas

The Sheppard sisters corralled another week’s worth of clean laundry into baskets and plunked down in front of the window to their universe, to sort and fold the clothes. It was the second Monday before Christmas and the view outside the window now included growing piles of dirty snow heaped alongside the narrow street.

“Hey, Doris, did you see all the cars parked in front of the house yesterday? A person could hardly get through,” Nell complained, even though, their trusty old Dodge Aries was parked in the driveway off the alley behind their house. “It must’ve been quite a party!” Nell shook out an inside-out wool sock. “Can’t you put your socks right-side out?” She barked at her sister. “I mean, it’d save me a lot o’ time if they weren’t tossed in the wash every which way!” she nagged.

“Yes…, Nell…,” Doris sighed sheepishly, “I’ll try to be more careful next time.” Having appeased her sister, she bowed her head over her work and allowed Nell to continue her harangue about the unusual neighbors. “… and there’s another one of those ragged old cloth candles ‘lit’ in their window. I watched ‘em do that yesterday at their party.” Now that she wasn’t the one being criticized, Doris looked up, interested in her sister’s observation. “That makes three of them, now. Seems mighty odd to me.” In spite of Nell’s assessment, Doris was developing some curiosity about the holiday ritual that seemed to be unfolding over there. More than that, though, if Doris was honest with herself she would have to admit that she was lonely and felt the need to have contact with people … other than Nell.

It wasn’t always that way, though, sitting by the front window and living vicariously through people she knew only through her remote observations. Back in the old days when the neighborhood was a close knit group of family and friends, things were different. But, a lot had changed since the sisters were young, living in the house on Hillside Avenue.  

Down through the years the Sheppard sisters’ dubious claim to fame among neighbors and friends had been their extensive knowledge of everything and everybody. Like the tabloids sold at the grocery checkouts, they were more than willing to share with anyone who wanted, a juicy slice of neighborhood gossip. However, one by one, their pool of family and friends evaporated. Many of the old timers had moved away or just died. As time went on, the only ones left who cared about such things were — Nell and Doris. As she gazed across the street and recalled last night’s party, an unsettled feeling came over Doris. There was something compelling about what was going on over there – the Davidson’s friends, the fun they seemed to be having and even that outlandish contraption hanging in their front window.

This is the second installment of a Christmas story I wrote awhile ago. 

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The Third Monday Before Christmas

The next week, right on schedule, the Monday-morning-laundry-routine took place. It was the third Monday before Christmas. Nell’s eyes were fixed on the frozen winter scene outside their picture window as her hands expertly felt for and folded the week’s wash. Doris did her part by sorting through some old rags used for a variety of cleaning chores around the house.

“They just don’t act like ordinary people,” Nell stated bluntly while she laid out a pair of white cotton socks one on top of the other. “They’re so different!” Mindlessly, she rolled the socks together. She stretched the opening of the bottom sock so that it engulfed the rest of the sock roll, making a ball, then she tossed it into the basket.

“Did you see the way they decorated their house for the holidays?” Doris snorted in amusement.  

“What decorations?” the sarcasm in Nell’s voice dripped like the water trickling from the nylon stockings drying over the tub in the bathroom. “They just look like a bunch of rags hanging in the front window,” she giggled as she walked to the bedroom to deliver her load of clean clothes.

Doris peered through the frost painted the corners of the glass. “Ohhhh boooy… What’s this now?” she warbled. Nell dropped a ball of socks and scudded across the living room to see what Doris had discovered.

“What is it!? What is it!?” Nell insisted.

“Look at what they’ve done to their window rags,” Doris said pointing across the street at the neighbor’s decorations plastered to their front window.

“You mean the ‘green doughnut’?” Nell scoffed.

“Ya, just take a look.” Doris said. “You hafta see this.”

About a week ago, using scraps of cloth they had collected, the Davidsons had stuck a wide, flat green doughnut shaped wreath to their window. It filled up most of the large window which faced the Sheppards’ house. On it, they spaced four rectangular strips of cloth, three purple and one pink, each one extending from some point on the circle upward. They had placed one larger white strip of cloth in the middle of the circle.

“They added another one of those big yellowish splotches,” Doris observed with bewilderment, comparing today’s display with last week’s. “Looks like they’re sticking them right on the end of those purple strips.”

“They look like candles!” Nell said, leaning toward the window trying to get a better look at the neighbor’s odd window decor. “That’s it, I’ll bet! They’re candles!” she enthused. Last week there was only one of those things ‘lit,’ now there’s two.” She was so pleased with the revelation that she tried to make a joke. “Maybe, I should go over there and see if I might use one of them rag candles to light my cigarette….” The sisters laughed so hard that twenty minutes went by before they could finish folding their clothes.

Today is the first day of Advent… Soooo …. I’m running a four part Christmas story that I wrote long ago that reflects the waiting and anticipation of the coming of Jesus. 

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The Fourth Monday Before Christmas

“Doris, for the life of me, I just can’t figure them people out!” muttered Nell. The older of the Sheppard sisters, motioned toward the house across the street then bent over a basket full of laundry to be folded and put away.

It was Monday, laundry day, a bit less than a month before Christmas. Doris, the quieter of the sisters, looked up from the catalog in her lap and mumbled, “Uh-huh…” She was more interested in the catalog than the strange people who moved in across the street a couple of months back.

For most of the seventy-some years that Doris and Nell had lived there, they had been the eyes and ears of the old neighborhood. Nothing much escaped their attentive gazes. Daily, even though they would vehemently deny it, at least one sister was positioned within scouting distance of the front picture window, standing watch. So, when the Davidsons moved in, Doris did her duty. Like a pirate from the crow’s-nest, she sounded the alarm from her lookout perch. “Ohhhh boooy! What’s this now?” she trilled, which was enough to bring Nell a-running.

Perhaps to others, those ‘strange’ people, Joey and Ruth Davidson, appeared fairly normal. One time, Ruth tried to be neighborly, knocked on the Sheppard sisters’ door and introduced herself. She even invited them over to her house for tea. “My husband, Joey, just made some mighty fine pumpkin bread,” Ruth tempted. However, Nell and Doris weren’t use to such overt displays of neighborliness. To them it seemed peculiar. So, with Doris peeking around Nell’s shoulder, Nell cautiously, albeit politely, refused. And that was it for personal contact with the new neighbors. They went their separate ways, and from their solitary observatory the sisters’ surveillance began in earnest.