The Candlestick Caper

Anything is possible at Christmastime.

That seemed especially true when I was a kid: the pile of presents that magically appeared under the tree, the crumbs from cookies left on the mantel the night before, unexpected visits from carolers spreading holiday cheer.

All those little surprises were reminders of the miracle of Christmas, when a king was born in a humble manger.

In my house, surprises were my specialty. Besides working full-time, Mom had me and Dad to care for. When the hustle and bustle of the holidays rolled around, she was on call 24 hours a day. Baking, shopping, decorating—she took it very seriously.

Most of all, the decorating. Mom made sure our house was full of decorations, and each was placed around the house just so. She also had a healthy sense of humor. If I surprised her with a silly face, or untied her apron strings, her smile came easy and showed on her face the rest of the day.

One afternoon during Christmas vacation I was working on a model railroad with my friend John. “Let’s take a break,” I said. With Mom and Dad at work, we had free run of the house. I got an idea. “My mom’s been fiddling with decorations all week. She says not to touch a thing.”

“Oh, no. What kind of stunt are you planning now?” John asked.

“You really think she’d notice if we moved one tiny little decoration?” I asked. John bet that she would.

I strolled around the house, looking for a target for our fun. My eye fell on a pair of candlesticks Mom had set on the table in the hallway. One had the letters NO printed on it, and the other EL. Side by side, of course, they spelled NOEL.

I rearranged them: ELNO. I had a good laugh, and then John and I went to work on the model train.

After a couple hours of railroading John went home for dinner. My parents were due home any minute, so I went back in the hallway and took a peek at my little Christmas surprise.

Noel? Who had put them back? No one else had been in the house. I called John. “John, did you touch those candlesticks after I set up Mom’s prank?”

“No way,” John said. “I want to hear her reaction.”

I hung up the phone and walked back into the hallway to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. Nope. The candlesticks spelled NOEL. How could it be?

I was old enough at fourteen to understand where those presents under the tree came from on Christmas morning. Old enough to understand who had eaten the plate of cookies the night before.

I’m old enough to understand far more at the ripe age of sixty-two today. But the mysterious candlestick caper has kept me in awe of the season all these years later.