Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe - Christmas Presents - Christmas Presents & Christmas in the Narrows

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

“I was thinking it would be fun if we made presents for each other this year” What’s the best gift you have ever received? On today’s podcast, Jess shares the surprising truth about her favourite gift, ever. Accompanied by two hilarious Dave and Morley stories about Christmas gifts and gift-giving.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Hello, I'm Jess Milton, and this is Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe. Welcome. I told you last week that we're playing Christmas stories every week on the podcast for the month of December. This week, we're going to start with this one. This is Stuart McLean with Christmas Presents. One night at dinner, a Sunday night, Sunday night in September, late September, Morley said, I've been thinking about Christmas. Me too, said Sam. Dave gasped. And I was thinking, said Morley, that it would be fun this year, Dave was shaking his head slowly back and forth now, unconsciously, staring at his wife while a confliction of emotions flicked across his face like playing cards. Despair, hope, confusion, and finally the last card, horror.

I was thinking, said morally, it would be fun if we made presents for each other. Dead silence. Stephanie dropped her fork. What, she said. Sam said, everything I want is made out of plastic. Does anyone know how to mold plastic? Morley said, I don't mean every present. I don't mean we have to make everything. I thought we could put our names in a hat and we could all draw a name and we'd have to make a present for the person whose name we drew. Sam said, I like

exploding stuff too. Exploding things are good, especially if they're made out of plastic. Stephanie said, God. Dave was nodding, a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth. Two nights later, Morley wrote everyone's name onto a piece of paper, and then she tore the paper up and folded the paper pieces and put them into a pot. And she had everyone reach into the pot and choose a name. No one say who they get, said Morley. What if you choose yourself, said Sam. But no one chose themselves.

And no one said who they got. In fact, no one seemed particularly interested in who got whom. Morley had hoped that everyone would be excited, but no one was excited at all. Several uneventful weeks went by, and everyone was busy, and only Morley, who was the busiest of all, was thinking about Christmas. The night they had pulled the names out of the pot, Morley had waited for the last piece of paper, and when she unfolded it, she had read her son's name. And now it was the middle of October, and she had thought long and hard about what she could make a 10-year-old boy for Christmas that he would enjoy. And she was stymied. She didn't know plastics. She didn't know explosives. Anyway, she wanted to make her son something meaningful

dave was no help there's something about boys you have to understand he said they aren't meaningful The idea of building a chair for Sam came to Morley like a bolt out of the blue. She saw a brochure advertising a night course at the local high school. Ten Monday nights, $200, all materials included. Morley checked the calendar. She'd be finished a week before Christmas. Morley imagined building a big, comfy chair, a chair you could get lost in. She imagined Sam as a grown man reading the paper in the chair that she had made.

She imagined him surrounded by his family. She imagined him saying, your grandmother made this for me when I was 10. She enrolled in the course and promptly missed two out of the first three classes. First time was work, the second time her mother had the flu and she had to take her supper. But she didn't miss any more after that, and she applied herself as diligently as she could. And although every step was a struggle, each screw, nail, and saw cut a mystery of momentous proportions,

and although her chair was emerging so much slower and tenuously than all the other chairs in the class, Mondays, the night she got to work on it, had become Morley's favorite night of the week. She loved going to her chair class. The only thing that spoiled it was that no one else in her family seemed to have embraced the holiday project. She was alone on this Christmas journey. She asked Stephanie about it one night.

You don't understand, said Stephanie. We're different, Mom. You're into the spirit of Christmas. I like the other stuff. The other stuff, said Morley. The shopping, said Stephanie. Clothes. Shopping and clothes, said Morley. And the TV specials, said Stephanie. Then one morning when Sam was getting up from the breakfast table, he looked at Morley across the kitchen and he said, I want to learn how to knit. Now there are seven words that sum up the challenges of motherhood. What's it like being a mom?

It's like standing in the kitchen in your robe half asleep, desperately trying to wake up and figure out what you say when a 10-year-old boy tells you he wants to learn how to knit. Morley gave Sam his first knitting lesson that night in his room. Morley took the needles from him and did the first row herself and handed them back and said, Okay, now do exactly what I do. After an hour or so, he sort of had it, more or less. What is it you want to knit, said Morley.

A coat, said Sam. Sam had chosen Stephanie. Morley had to teach him again right from the beginning the next night. And again two nights later. He did fine as long as he kept going, but every time he put the needles down, he lost track. Eventually he got it, however. By the beginning of November, Sam was good enough to sit in front of the television and knit while he watched TV. But whenever Stephanie appeared, he'd thrust the needles into Morley's hands or stuff them under the couch. So Morley hauled an old black and white portable out of the basement and set it up on his bureau, and he sat in his room all weekend, the needles clicking away like a train. My fingers hurt, he said on Saturday night. The next weekend, the next weekend he was invited to Jeremy's house for a sleepover,

and he wanted to know what he could take his knitting in. Morley was afraid he'd get teased, but she packed it up nevertheless, and he headed off with his toothbrush and his sleeping bag and his bag of wool. And at 9 o'clock, Jeremy's mother phoned and said, you're not going to believe this. You know what they're doing? They're downstairs watching Lethal Weapon 3 and knitting.

Suddenly everyone wanted to knit. Suddenly knitting was the thing to do. The next weekend there was a hockey tournament in Whitby. And Dave drove Sam and Jeremy and Tim and Jeff. They all sat in the back, he said. And they were talking about hockey and the game and how they were going to cream the team from Whitby, the kind of stuff you'd expect to hear from a backseat of little boys. And then one of them said,

Damn it, I dropped a stitch. And then they'd talk about hockey some more, and they'd be quiet, and all you heard was the clicking of their needles. And then someone would say something like, look how long Jeff's is. Jeff, you're going so fast. You must have done this before. It was wonderful.

But Morley didn't think it was wonderful at all. As far as she could tell, her Christmas project was headed off the rails. She was worried about Sam. She thought he was getting compulsive about the knitting. He'd disappear into his room and sit on the edge of his bed and knit for hours. And he kept unraveling everything he did. It's fun to destroy it, he said. I like the feeling of the knots coming undone. It didn't seem healthy.

But that wasn't the worst of it. On Saturday afternoon, while Dave was in Whitby, Becky Turlington had shown up at the front door. Is Stephanie home, she asked. She was holding a package wrapped in brown paper. No, said Morley, Stephanie's out shopping. Becky had turned to go, but then she had stopped and held the parcel up and said, tell her the present's ready. Tell her she owes me 15 bucks. She'd shown up twice more that afternoon. Tell her I need the money, she said. Morley was fairly certain that Stephanie had pulled Dave's name out of the pot on that night in October.

And that placed Morley in a terrible position. She wanted to talk to Dave about what was happening. And Morley didn't want to hurt him. Anyway, as far as Morley could tell, Dave hadn't begun anything himself. It was barely a week to go before Christmas and her entire project was turning into a fiasco. Her chair was a mess. Stephanie was cheating. And Dave thought Sam's knitting compulsion was cute.

Jacques Plante used to knit, he said. What, said Morley? Jacques Plante was a goalie for the Montreal Canadiens, said Dave. I know who Jacques Plante was, said Morley. He was the oldest ofadiens, said Dave. I know who Jacques Plante was, said Morley. He was the oldest of 11 children, said Dave, and they were poor and his mother needed his help to make clothes for his brothers and sisters. When he was in the NHL, he knit his own underwear.

What's your point, said Morley. Jacques Plante said knitting calmed him down. You think Sam needs to knit? I have a friend, said Dave, who believes knitting improves hand-eye coordination. He thinks the reason Jacques Plante was such a good goalie was because of all that knitting. After dinner, Sam called her into his bedroom. He was crying. I'll never finish the coat, he said.

He was pointing at the sum total of his knitting, a rectangle of blue wool about six inches wide and a foot long. One side of the rectangle was completely asymmetrical. Couldn't maintain constant tension as he worked. Each line was coming out a different length. It's lovely, said Morley. No, it's not, said Sam. I hate it. And he began to unravel it right in front of her.

Morley brought Sam's chair home on the Monday before Christmas. The next night, Dave found her in the basement crying. She had a bolt of beige corduroy at her feet. She was trying to tack a huge piece of foam to one of the arms. Dave watched her for a moment without saying anything. Then he reached over and he touched the top of the chair. The legs were uneven and it wobbled unsteadily. It's pathetic, said Morley, dropping her hammer on the floor. It looks like it was made with a lot of love, said Dave. Looks like it was made by a two-year-old, said Morley. Well, it hasn't been covered yet, said Dave.

Any chair without upholstery is going to look awkward. Pathetic, said Morley. Not awkward. Dave looked at her, and he said, I have a suggestion. Can I make a suggestion? Morley didn't say anything, but she didn't walk away. And Dave said, you could spend the next few days wrestling with that material and you'll cover that chair and we both know what you're going to end up

with. Cover that chair with upholstery and forgive me, but you're going to end up with a bad chair. Morley nodded. Dave said, forget about the foam padding. Forget about the upholstery. Don't put fabric on it. Put wheels on it. What you have down there isn't a chair without covering. What you have down there is a go-kart without wheels. You put wheels on that thing and you'll have one very happy little boy on Christmas morning. The next night after supper, Sam called Morley into his room. He was frantic. The needles won't go through anymore, he said. He was waving at a pile of wool lying on his bed.

Another six-inch square of knitting, each line of the square getting tighter, giving his work the appearance of a triangle. You have to relax, said Morley. I only have two days left, said Sam. Two days is not a lot of time, said Morley. Sam shook his head in vigorous agreement. But it should be enough time for a pro like you to knit a scarf, said Morley. I'm knitting a coat, not a scarf, said Sam. Oh, said Morley, I thought you were knitting a scarf. Let me start it for you.

On Christmas Eve, after Sam and Stephanie were in bed and the last present was wrapped and under the tree, Morley called Dave down to the basement. Can you help me carry this upstairs, she said. She'd taken the wheels off Sam's old wagon and attached them to the bottom of her chair. Dave climbed into it and smiled. She had left the wagon handle in place so it rested between his legs like a joystick. He'll love it, he said. And then he screamed. She was pushing him towards the washing machine. First gently, then faster and faster.

Where's the brake, is the last thing he howled. They could see light spilling out from under Sam's door when they went upstairs and heard the sound of his needles rocking together. He's still at it, said Morley. What should we do? It was one in the morning. Come to bed, said Dave. His door is shut. He wants to do this by himself. He was working on a scarf, said Morleyley as she prepared the bed, but this afternoon it changed into a headband. Wasn't going to be big enough for a scarf. When I suggested the headband, you know what the little bugger said? He said, but isn't her head the fattest part of her?

It's the most pathetic headband you've ever seen. God, I hope she'll wear it. At least around the house. He's going to love his go-kart, said Dave. Morley was sitting on the edge of the bed. She turned around. Stephanie chose you, she said. And there's something you should know about her present. No, said Dave. Don't was sitting on the edge of the bed. She turned around. Stephanie chose you, she said, and there's something you should know about her present. No, said Dave, don't tell me anything. I want to be surprised. Morley stood up and walked toward the bedroom window. Don't worry,

said Dave, it'll be fine. And so it was. Stephanie, it turned out, had not paid Becky Turlington to make her father's present. She had written her grandmother in Cape Breton and asked her to ship a photo of Dave and his father to the Turlington's house COD. It was a photo that had amazed Stephanie the moment she saw it, which had been two summers ago when she had gone to Big Narrows for a week by herself. The picture was taken when Dave was five years old, and in it he is standing on the piano bench in the parlor, which makes him about the same height as his father's bass fiddle, which they're both holding between them and laughing, both of them.

Stephanie's grandfather's head moving backwards into the side. Her father, a little boy in the picture, starting to fold over at the waist, his hand moving to his mouth, the way Sam's hand moves in moments of hilarity. When Becky Turlington gave her the picture, Stephanie took it to a photographer and had a copy made and sent the original back to Cape Breton.

And then she had her copy framed. It was wrapped and hidden in her cupboard two weeks before Christmas. But three times she had her copy framed. It was wrapped and hidden in her cupboard two weeks before Christmas. But three times she had opened it so she could look at it, and three times she had to wrap it up again. But Morley didn't know any of this as she climbed into bed, and as she fell asleep, she was worried about Christmas morning, about Stephanie, and about the go-kart, about Sam.

She slept for a restless few hours, and then she woke up, and when she couldn't get back to sleep, decided to make herself a cup of tea. She was almost out of the bedroom before she noticed the red ribbon tied around her wrist. It ran to the floor into a pile of ribbon gathered at her feet. She was still dopey with sleep, and she started to gather the

ribbon up and it was only as she did that she realized it didn't end in the pile at her feet but continued toward the stairs and she followed it down the stairs and past the tree and into the kitchen. By the time she got to the back door she had gathered an armful of red ribbon and she was smiling. Dave and Morley have a pear tree in the corner of their backyard. Morley followed the trail of ribbon out the back door and across the yard to the pear tree. The end of the ribbon, the end not tied to her wrist, led to a switch attached to the base of the tree and a note that read, Merry Christmas. I chose you. Love, Dave. Morley looked up the bedroom window and then back at the tree and then she flicked the switch.

And the most amazing thing happened. The pear tree slowly and gracefully came to life. Little lights began to snap on in the branches above her head. And then, as if the tree had been animated by Walt Disney himself, the lights spread along the branches until the entire tree was glowing a dark red crimson, a crimson-like dark wine that cast a magical glow over the backyard. Dave woke at three, and he reached out his arm for his wife, and when he didn't find her, he lay there trying to will himself awake, and he got up and called her name,

and then he walked to the bedroom window and looked out, and Morley was sitting at the picnic table, wearing his work boots, the laces undone, his winter coat over her nightie, and a toque that belonged to Sam on her head, and she was cradling a mug of tea between her hands. From the perspective of the bedroom, she looked about 12 years old. It started to snow, big fat flakes of snow dropping out of the sky,

and Morley was staring at the snow as it floated out of the darkness into the circle of red light. Dave pushed the bedroom window open and said, Merry Christmas, and Morley bent down and made a snowball, glowing now as she stood in the light of the tree, her hair wet and sticking to her forehead, working not so quickly that Dave hadn't had time to gather a handful of snow off the window ledge himself.

The two of them threw their snowballs at almost the same moment, and they both laughed in wonder when they collided in midair, spraying snow like a shower of icy fireworks through the silence of the night. That was the story we call Christmas Presents. We recorded that at our Christmas concert back in 2001. We're going to take a short break now, but we'll be back in a couple of minutes with another Dave and Morley Christmas story. This one is all about Dave, so stick around. Welcome back.

Time for our second story now. This is Christmas in the Narrows. Christmas was always a magical time in Big Narrows in those days. Being in the hills, there was always snow. And there's nothing like a December snowfall to get you in the Christmas mood. Unless, of course, you add steamed up kitchen windows, which is easy to do because steamed up windows were something big narrows specialized in back then, back when Dave was a boy. Of course, if you're talking about getting into the Christmas spirit, it's also better if it happens to be night, and the snow is coming down soft and slow,

big soft flakes falling out of the perfect darkness, like in all those Christmas movies, like it always fell in the narrows. Or maybe it's already fallen. Maybe it fell last night and tonight the sky is deep and starry. And the moon is out. And you're walking by Macaulay's woodlot. The snow sparkling under a full moon.

And you're thinking to yourself that when a winter night is crisp and white, the world can pretty much feel perfect. Of course, chances are, if you were in the Narrows, it would be dark. Anyone who lived there in those days would tell you it got dark earlier back then and that it stayed dark later and that when it was dark it was a darker dark than it is today and that meant if you were a 10 year old boy which Dave was that year December was the month you got to stay out after dark every day it's always dark before supper. So if you were walking home from the quarry pond where everyone went after school to play shinny, you walked home in the dark every

night. Because he lived up on the hill, on the hillside of town, Dave had the bonus of having to walk right through town on his way home. His route took him right down River Street, past all the storefronts, his skates slung over his stick and bouncing off his back. Now, back then, back before the internet and online shopping, the merchants of Big Narrow spared no expense whipping the town into the Christmas spirit. Old Angus McDonnell, who ran the post office and general store, put up that fantastic wooden candy cane his father made so many years ago. It was at least three feet long from tip to tip. And I don't have to tell you, three feet was a lot bigger in those days than it is today.

Three feet was a lot bigger in those days than it is today. At the Maple Leaf Cafe, Dot would haul out her collection of little elves, December the 1st on the button. That's why they call me Dot, she'd say. Of course, if you're 10 years old, the highlight of Christmas was Rutledge's Hardware Store. Rutledge's was where everyone did their Christmas shopping back then. You could find everything under the sun at Rutledge's Hardware Store. Rutledge's was where everyone did their Christmas shopping back then. You could find everything under the sun at Rutledge's. They had shirts and sofas in matching plaid.

There was the houseware section in the back and the hunting section in the basement. Why, they had everything you needed to get a deer from the woodlot to the dining room table. And the decorations? Christmas Dave was 10. Mr. Rutledge put up a string of colored Christmas lights that looped all the way around the storefront window. Every night as Dave walked by the glow of those lights, he'd think you could go all the way to Glace Bay and not see anything half as wonderful. Made his first Christmas visit to Rutledge's the Saturday they put the tree up. The family tree, I mean.

Whole family went. They went to pick up some Christmas decorations. Just a minute, called Dave as everyone headed for the car. Wait, he called as he bounded upstairs into his bedroom. When he got there, he slammed his bedroom door closed behind him and pushed his chair over to the closet. And then climbing onto the chair and standing on it in his toes, he reached into the secret hole in this cupboard wall, the hole where he kept his important stuff, his hockey cards, his yo-yo, and two unexploded one-inch firecrackers,

the penknife his mother didn't know he had, and most importantly, the little metal box where he kept his money. He sat on the bed with a box in his lap. He was 10 years old and he was rich. He had $27.86. When they finally got to Rutledge's, he wandered around by himself, his right hand jammed in his pocket, clutching his money. In housewares, he found the oven mitts his mother had hinted about, the ones with the birds on them. In hardware, a retractable tape measure for his father, 14 feet long.

He pulled it all the way out and checked. In bath supplies, he found a plastic pink mirror and brush for his sister, Annie. And then he rounded the aisle where Mr. Rutledge kept the snow shovels and toboggans, and he bumped into a display table. Though the first thing he saw wasn't the table, it was the hand-lettered sign that Mr. Rutledge had hung from the ceiling tiles. Big, Quebec, a miniature hockey arena. And Dave, 10 years old, was overcome by its beauty. He literally stopped breathing.

A sheet of gray plywood ice shining under the fluorescent lights was decorated with replica blue lines and red circles. And most wondrously, home to ten miniature tin hockey players, each one identically frozen in fluid motion, each one lunging forward with one miniature skate hovering in the air while the other dug into the ice. They say the road of desperation can only be found through the doorway of desire. He was only 10. Desperation was still a few weeks away.

But that was the moment the door of desire flew open. Dave, 10 years old, stared at the table knowing one thing and nothing more. He wanted nothing else in his life as much as he wanted that game. He looked up and down the aisle. No one was looking. He reached out and touched one of the rubber-tipped handles. He touched it the reverential way you might touch a painting in a museum if you found yourself in a museum with no one watching you. He touched it, and when nothing happened, he gave it a tentative twirl.

A defenseman in a red Montreal Canadiens jersey spun around. Each player could pivot a complete 360 degrees. His mouth fell open. This was desire brushed by awe. He jumped when Mr. Rutledge rested his hand on his shoulder. Quite something, isn't it, Davey? Mr. Rutledge had appeared out of nowhere. Dave's heart was pounding.

He was afraid of the sound that might come out of his mouth if he tried to talk, so he just nodded. A nod was all he could manage. He was halfway home before he was able to speak. As they crossed the old railway tracks, he finally said, did you see the hockey game? There was a chasm of silence in the car. Finally, his father said, lots of money for that game. It was only $24. $24.99. Looked like fun. Didn't say another word after that.

Not a word. That night, however, he lay in bed for hours before he gave in to sleep. He could actually hear the flipping sounds of the players fighting for the puck. The puck flying around too fast for the eye to follow. He stopped at Rutledge's every day on his way home that week. On Wednesday, the pile of games had shrunk from five to four. He counted twice to be certain. That night he waited until he was sure he was the only one still awake. When he was sure, he slipped out of his bed. He picked up his flashlight and he crept downstairs. In the kitchen, he opened the door to

the basement. He went down the basement stairs and into the furnace room. He slipped behind the furnace and into the old coal room where he knew his parents hid Christmas presents. And there, just like he had expected on the far side of the room, he saw a large cardboard box. His heart was beating crazily, thumping, pounding. He played the flashlight across the box. It was the Royal Dalton China tea set his sister Annie wanted. There was no hockey game in sight. It was cold the next week, the ice on the quarry black and fast, and the colder it got, the warmer the lights in the stores on River Street looked on his way home. Warm and welcoming.

It was 5.20 on Monday night when he walked into Rutledge's. They had sold another game over the weekend. They were down to three. That night he made another trip to the furnace room. Still nothing. On the Wednesday before Christmas, there was only one game left. Is it really the last one? He asked Mr. Rutledge.

It's the last one, Davey. It was four o'clock. The sky was already graying. There was hardly anyone in Rutledge's. The afternoon lull before the closing rush. He wandered into hardware. The tape measure was still there. He reached out and touched it. So were the oven mitts. He picked one up and slipped it on. His stomach was whirling.

His head was spinning. Desire, as it always will, had finally led him to desperation. He found Mr. Rutledge at the back of the store. Mr. Rutledge, I would like to buy the very last deluxe tabletop hockey game manufactured by the Falcon Toy Company of Montreal, Quebec. Mr. Rutledge frowned. He began rubbing his hands up and down on his canvas apron. He said, are you sure, Davey? There are four days until Christmas. Isn't the game on your list? It's not for me, Mr. Rutledge. He said it, but he couldn't look Mr. Rutledge in the eyes as he said it. His mother was cooking supper when he snuck into the house. He snuck in and

snuck upstairs and he hid the game in the crawl space in the attic. He had a plan. On Christmas Eve, when everyone was asleep, he would wrap the game, write a tag, and put it under the tree. name, write a tag, and put it under the tree. The tag would say, for Dave, Merry Christmas, love from Santa. He had three days to figure out how he was going to get presents for everyone in his family with the $2.87 he had left to his name. It was past midnight on Christmas Eve, already technically Christmas morning, when he snuck downstairs to put the hockey game under the tree. The living room looked like a magic forest, presents spilling out from under the tree, all red and green in the soft glow of the colored lights. He stood there, lost in the wonder of it, the big box with his hockey game resting on the chair beside him.

He got down on his hands and knees and began to read the tags on the presents. To his dismay, there seemed to be more stuff for his sister than there was for him. He did see he was getting a book from his grandmother and a record from his mother. The biggest thing there was the Royal Dalton China tea set for his sister. And beside it, his jaw dropped. He couldn't believe his eyes. There, beside the tea set almost hidden by the sofa, there was a box exactly the same dimensions as the one he had carried downstairs. He didn't have to check the label.

He was certain as soon as he saw it. But he checked it. To our Davy, it read, from Mom and dad, Merry Christmas. We love you. They had bought him the game. He sat on the floor and stared at it in the glow of the tree lights. Maybe he sat there for an hour or maybe it was five minutes. However long it was, it seemed like forever. He sat there until he heard someone stir upstairs. And then he snuck back to bed. He took the game he had bought upstairs with him.

He put it back in the attic. It was snowing on Christmas morning. The sky low, the snow falling thin and cold. His sister woke him up. Wake up, Davy, it's morning. It was the first Christmas he needed help waking up, the first one he wanted to sleep through. They went to the kitchen and made coffee and hot chocolate. They saddled around the tree. Annie opened her tea set. When she'd done that, Charlie stood up. He was about to get the big box for Dave. Before he did, Dave said, let me give you something first.

Dave said, let me give you something first. Dave was dreading the big box. Charlie seemed reluctant, but he nodded. He took Dave's present back to his chair, a round disc the size of a hockey puck. It's your yo-yo, said Charlie. He sounded puzzled. I thought you'd like it, Dave he sounded guilty it wasn't just any yo-yo it was his prized black and green big chief cheerio yo-yo he'd won it the previous summer he thought he would have it all his life. He had been wrong.

That's very thoughtful, said Charlie, though he still looked more puzzled than grateful. Puzzlement tipped ever so slightly to discomfort when Margaret opened her present, a ballpoint pen that she was pretty sure had come from the marmalade jar by the telephone. I thought you could use it when you write letters, said Dave. Oh, said Margaret. Thank you. It's a good pen. He'd struggled over his sister, Annie. He thought of giving her his hockey card collection, but he knew she wouldn't appreciate it.

Same for his microscope. Then he'd spotted his baseball mitt. He'd spent all last spring making the perfect pocket. One afternoon he'd shown Annie how to use it, how you put all your fingers in the last one and leave the middle ones empty, how the glove folded around a ball when you caught it. She loved it. He knew that sometimes she came into his room and put it on

when he wasn't home. It was a sacrifice, but he decided it would be worth it. He loved it too, but he didn't love it more than the deluxe club model tabletop hockey game manufactured by the Falcon Toy Company of Montreal, Quebec. It was only while he was watching Annie open the glove that he realized what he had done. You gave me your glove, she said. That's when the enormity of what had happened hit him. He'd spent all his money on a hockey game he had never played and he'd lost his beloved yo-yo and ball glove he wasn't so fussed about the pen at noon he was lying on the living room floor setting up the hockey game with his father. He didn't feel the way he thought he was going to feel. He felt hollow.

Annie was on the phone. Annie was talking to her friend Lizzie. She was telling Lizzie all about her ball glove. My brother gave it to me, she said. She didn't even mention her china tea set. We're going to play catch every day. I'm going to play on the school team. Dave's mother walked over to him where he was lying on the floor beside the hockey game.

She squatted down and gave one of the rubber-tipped handles a twirl. She said, you gave your sister a wonderful gift. We're very proud of you. Dave looked over to the phone. Annie was holding the receiver awkwardly in her gloved hand. She hadn't taken the glove off all day. Dave knew his mother was right. He knew the glove was way better than a plastic brush and mirror, but he didn't know if he was allowed to take credit. It was, after all, almost an accident, a hard way to learn that giving can be better than receiving. Annie was still wearing the glove that afternoon when she walked by his bedroom door. You like it, he said.

You know what was my favorite glove? He could have said his only glove. It's my favorite present, she said. He wanted to tell her the truth he wanted to tell her about the game in the attic I want to tell you why I gave it to you he said Annie was seven years old that Christmas she stood in the doorway to his room and she stared at him. I already know why you gave it to me, she said. Everyone does. He stared at his sister, standing there so determined in her jeans and plaid shirt. You gave it to me, she said, because you love me.

And you knew I loved it more than you. She was right. He did know that. And he did love her. It might not have been the whole truth, but it was a greater one. That's right, he said. That's right. They went downstairs together then, and they played his new hockey game for an hour. And who would have guessed it? She beat him every game. it. She beat him every game. Thank you.

That was Christmas in the Narrows. We recorded that in 2011 in Regina, Saskatchewan. Here's the backstory. Stuart wanted to write about the perfect gift. It was an idea he loved thinking about. It was rare for him to start a story like this with an overarching theme. Usually he'd start with an idea, a moment, or even just a scene. Not this story. This Christmas, back in 2011, he decided he wanted to tell a story about the spirit of the season, the thing that too often gets trampled on or smothered by everything else. He wanted to write a story that captured that idea, the idea of giving rather than receiving. I think he succeeded. Dave is just the right age in this story, just the right age to start understanding that giving the perfect gift is way better and way more satisfying than receiving the perfect gift. Dave's also starting to realize that sometimes the

best gift of all is knowledge, the deep understanding that comes with experience. As I said, Stuart set off with the intention to write about giving rather than receiving and the idea of the perfect gift. And this also gets at that idea we talked about a couple of weeks ago on the podcast, the idea that the most important things are never the things you think. The best gifts, the ones you cherish, the ones you have forever or use the most or value the most, you don't always recognize them right out of the box. They're often gifts given to you by people who know you so well, better than you know yourself. They know you so well that they see something for you and they know you need it before you know that yourself. My husband, Josh, is a great gift

giver. He's bought me some incredible gifts over the years. And he's overly generous, which sounds good, but which I actually hate because we share all of our money. So I'll open one of his beautiful, thoughtful, expensive presents and I'll have to resist the urge to say, we can't afford this. But his best gifts are always the simple ones. Just the other day I was doing laundry and I held up this, I'd call it a jumper. I don't know what it's actually called. It's like a one-piece outfit. It has pants and a tank top all in one, kind of like a dress, but with pants.

It looks like one of those, what do you call it, like a muumuu. So it kind of looks like a muumuu. He had found it on sale a few years ago and he bought it for me on a whim, never knowing that it would become my favorite article of clothing. It is not a fancy piece of clothing, but I'm not a fancy person. It's the kind of thing that I throw on over top of a bathing suit after I go for a swim or that I put on on a Saturday morning fresh out of bed. It's made out of hemp. It dries easily. It's comfortable. It's practical. It's great for traveling. It's kind of cool looking, like if you think

Moomoos are cool looking. And it's just very, it's very me. So I held it up the other day when I was doing laundry and I said, this is the best gift you've ever given me. This is the best gift you've ever given me. That, he said, I could see the pain on his face. Not the earrings he bought me for my 40th birthday. Not the ring he gave me when he asked me to marry him. Not the necklace he gave me when Eloise was born. The hemp moo moo thing. An expression of just how well he knows me. The perfect gift.

I hope you get a gift like that this Christmas. Better yet, I hope you give a gift like that this Christmas. Moo moos for everyone. All right, we got to take a short break now. We all have to go wrap our mooomoos, but we'll gather back here next week with two more Vinyl Cafe Christmas stories. I don't know about you, but I am loving this. It feels super festive to be sharing these stories each week, so I hope it feels good to you too. Here's what's coming up in next week's episode. Dave had his cakes wrapped in cheesecloth and aging on a shelf in the basement. Two or three evenings a week, he would head downstairs and sprinkle them with a soaking mixture he made with the bourbon.

It's a very European thing, he said one night. It's like having a goat down there. I don't pretend to understand everything he says. That's next week on the show. So come back and join me, won't you? Backstage at the Vinyl Cafe is part of the Apostrophe Podcast Network. Greg Duclute is our recording engineer, and he has never, not once, mistaken potpourri for snack mix. Theme music is by my friend Danny Michelle, and the show is produced by Louise Curtis and me, Jess Milton.

Let's meet again next week. Until then, so long for now.