Unpublished Work © Julie A. Sellers 2023

Amelia Holmberg would never forget the Christmas she was ten. It was 1958, their first Christmas with electricity in the old family farmhouse at Sunflower Lane Farm. But it wasn’t the colored bulbs on the cedar tree they’d cut out of the pasture or the sun glinting off the stiff drifts that had closed the roads that shone the brightest in her memories. It was the book.

“Do you think it will stop in time for the Christmas pageant?” Amelia asked her sister Janis from the window where she stood listening to the wind shriek and watching the snow fall at a dizzying pace on Christmas Eve. Janis was three years older, and Amelia trusted her opinion on all things, from the weather to which colors best complimented her wavy strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes.

Janis glanced up from the table where she sat decorating sugar cookies.  “Don’t know, Sis.”

“Looks like it’s picking up,” said their mother as she returned to the kitchen with a stack of cookie tins. It was a Sunflower Lane tradition to make a variety of Christmas delicacies and share them with their neighbors, friends, and family in Storey, Kansas. Every year, the tins went out filled with sugar cookies, gingerbread men, spritz cookies, peppernuts, and peanut brittle. And every year, they came back empty, ready to be refilled the following Christmas.

Amelia sighed. It was just her luck. The year she finally had a speaking part in the pageant—albeit a minor one—would just have to be the year a blizzard struck the Kansas Flint Hills. Generally, she loved living in the country, but this was one of the times when she thought darkly that town kids had all the luck. Then, another thought struck her: What if Grandma Holmberg couldn’t make it out from town on Christmas Day? Amelia sighed.

“What’s the matter?” asked Janis as she sprinkled coconut on cookie Santa’s beard.

“What if Grandma can’t come on Christmas?”

“Then we’ll celebrate with her when she can,” replied Mom. She tucked a strand of blonde hair back into the bun it had escaped from and continued decorating.

Amelia pulled her sweater tighter around her shoulders as a gust of wind slammed into the house. Mom didn’t understand. Grandma Holmberg always gave Amelia a book—for Christmas, her birthday, and any special occasion. While Amelia had accepted the fact that gifts from her parents would usually be practical out of necessity—pajamas, new shoes, pencils for school—she could always count on Grandma to give her what she treasured most: books. And this year, she had her heart set on Charlotte’s Web.

Amelia had checked the book out from the Storey Elementary School Library multiple times—so many, in fact, that the school librarian had asked that she kindly let the other pupils have a chance to read it. Amelia loved that book, even though it made her cry every single time she read it. It was all she wanted for Christmas that year, and she had told Grandma so. But if Grandma couldn’t come, she couldn’t have her book on Christmas Day. It would be a dismal day, she was certain.

“Why don’t you come help us with these cookies?” said Mom. “Many hands make light work, and it will perk your spirits up.”

Janis grinned at her younger sister. It was their standing joke that Mom couldn’t talk for more than five minutes without injecting a saying or pithy proverb. Janis tossed her long, brown braid over her shoulder and sprinkled sugar on a Christmas tree cookie.

Amelia wasn’t so sure anything could lift her spirits, but when her mother told her to do something, she did it. She sat and picked up a cookie, spreading a generous layer of buttercream frosting on it.

The girls’ father came in through the back door with a gust of wind. He slipped his snow-covered boots off onto a hooked rug and hung his coat on the hook. He ran his hand through his wavy, dark brown hair.

“Livestock’s all safe,” he said as he snuck a cookie off the table and winked a blue eye at Amelia.

“Dad!” Janis scolded good-naturedly. “These are for the neighbors.”

“You know I always get to do a taste test first. Besides, it’ll have to let up before we can take anyone a tin of cookies.”

Amelia sighed again and leaned her chin in her hands, staring glumly at the cookies.

“What’s the matter, sweet pea?” asked Dad.

“If it keeps snowing, I won’t get to be in the pageant tonight, and Grandma won’t make it for dinner tomorrow. The storm is ruining Christmas,” Amelia grumbled.

“Well, let’s see what we can do to try to save it,” Dad said with a smile. “Hand over some of those cookies, and I’ll help you decorate. We can all sing some Christmas carols while we work.”

Amelia grinned, in spite of herself. “All right, but no green beards on Santa or yellow sprinkles on the holly this year.”

They worked and sang for an hour before Dad went back out to check the state of the laneway to the county road and the road to the highway. He returned with a shake of his head, and Amelia knew the Christmas pageant was a loss.

“I’ll call Reverend Owens and let him know we won’t be able to come,” Mom said.

“Come on, Amelia. Help me take these cookies up to the cold room,” Janis said.

They carefully stacked the tins in two boxes and carried them upstairs to the unused bedroom on the northwest corner of the house. It was the chilliest room in the unheated upstairs, earning it the name of the cold room and making it a perfect storage location for their cookies.

“Let’s play a board game, Sis,” Janis suggested. “I know it won’t make up for the pageant, but we can still have some fun.”

“Fine,” Amelia agreed. She did enjoy board games.

“You go down and help Mom make hot chocolate. I’ll get some games.”

Amelia trudged down the steps, arms crossed and still frowning. She knew she was ten and too old to be pouting, but she didn’t care. As she neared the bottom, her mother’s voice filtered through the door they had not fully shut.

“I know, Elizabeth, and Amelia will be disappointed. But you can’t control the weather. It’s not your fault the book didn’t arrive. You’ll give it to her when it does.”

Amelia felt a lump in her throat. Mom was talking on the phone with Grandma, and the meaning of the conversation was all too clear. Even if Grandma could make it out for dinner tomorrow, the snowstorm would still ruin Christmas for Amelia. She heard Janis shut her closet door, so she tromped down the last few stairs and opened the door noisily. She didn’t need Mom telling her that little pitchers have big ears and scolding her for accidentally overhearing her conversation.

Amelia tried to forget about the storm, the missed pageant, and the undelivered Christmas gift while she and her family played board games and drank hot chocolate that afternoon. She was thankful for her family, her home at Sunflower Lane, the crackling logs in the wood stove. And Mom was right: whatever book Grandma had ordered for her would still be hers—just not tomorrow.

As darkness began to fall, Dad went out to check on the livestock again. Amelia helped Mom make biscuits to go with a simmering pot of beef and vegetable stew for supper.

“It’s quit,” Dad said when he came back in. “I could even see a star or two trying to peek out. But it’ll take a while to get the roads cleaned off. Those are some big drifts.”

Amelia ate her supper in silence, listening to Dad reminisce about Christmases at Sunflower Lane when he was a boy.

“Sweet pea,” he said at last, laying his calloused hand over hers. “I know you’re disappointed, but someday you’ll be the one telling your family about the blizzardy Christmas when you were ten. And until then, maybe you could write a story or a poem about it.”

Amelia smiled. Dad always knew just how to cheer her up, and he wasn’t wrong. A blizzard was a good topic for the stories and poems she loved to write. He knew her well. 

“You’re right,” she said.

Amelia went in search of paper and a pencil and lay on the floor next to the wood stove. The rest of her family read while Amelia wrote a fanciful story about Old Man Winter taking pity on a young girl and blowing the roads clear just in time to save Christmas. But when she went up to bed and snuggled under the pile of quilts with her hot water bottle for warmth, she was less optimistic.

“I know I should be grateful, but I’ve looked forward to Christmas for so many weeks. But Mom’s right. We’ll just have to make the best of it,” she told herself at last, pulling the quilts up over her icy nose.

The next morning dawned frigid but clear, the sun coruscating off the stiff drifts in crisp brilliance. Dad made his morning rounds to check on the livestock and roads and reported that the plows were working to clear the highway.

“If I know my mom, she’ll be out for Christmas dinner,” he said. “I’ll go out in an hour and clear the snow out of the laneway and clean the road up to the highway.”

A flutter of hope spread its wings in Amelia’s heart. Even if her book hadn’t arrived, at least having Grandma come for dinner would be fun. She always asked about Amelia’s writing, and she always brought fudge.

True to Dad’s predictions, Grandma arrived shortly before noon carrying a pan of her luscious butterhorn rolls and a tin of fudge. She sent Dad back out to her car for a box with brightly wrapped gifts, but Amelia averted her eyes. She didn’t want to see the empty space where her book should be.

Christmas dinner was everything it should be: ham, scalloped potatoes, cranberry sauce, green bean bake, Grandma’s rolls, pumpkin pie, and fudge. Amelia laughed and smiled and felt her mood lift in spite of herself.

After all of the dishes had been washed, dried, and put away, everyone gathered around the Christmas tree in the living room. The wood stove wrapped them in its cozy warmth, and Amelia felt for the first time that Christmas had not been ruined. Her book, whichever one it was, would be there waiting for her whenever it arrived.

Janis and Amelia handed out the gifts and then everyone took turns opening one to make the excitement last. The girls received new pajamas, pencils, and scarves from their parents, and Grandma gave Janis a blouse she’d made in the latest fashion. There was one gift left, a medium-sized box with Amelia’s name on it, a gift from Grandma. She opened it carefully so they could reuse the wrapping paper. Inside was another box. She glanced up to find Grandma smiling at her.

“Go on—open it,” said Grandma gently.

Amelia slipped the top off the box. Inside was a book with a pale green cover and the face of a young woman on it.

“Anne of Green Gables,” Amelia said, reading the title. She could tell the book was old, and she lifted it with careful hands from the box.

“That was my favorite book when I was your age, and really, my entire life,” Grandma said. “My aunt sent it to me from Boston when it first came out in 1908, and I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve read it over the years.  It’s always meant a lot to me, and I want you to have it.”

A thrill ran through Amelia. This might not have been the book she’d asked for, but it was one that had been Grandma’s, and now Grandma was giving it to her. She opened the cover and saw the inscription in looping handwriting inside: “For Elizabeth Ann. Love, Aunt Emily. June 1908.” Beneath, Grandma had written, “For Amelia Ann Holmberg, Christmas 1958. Love, Grandma.” Amelia turned to the first page and began to read. Yes, this was a book she knew she was going to love. She rose and gave her grandmother a tight hug.

“Thank you, Grandma. I know I’ll love it as much as you, and I promise to take good care of it.”

“I know you will, honey,” Grandma said, patting her back. “And someday, you can give it to your own daughter or granddaughter.”

“I will. I promise. And I’ll make sure she always knows where it came from and how it saved Christmas.”

“Saved Christmas?” Grandma asked.

But Amelia was already back into her new book.

Amelia Holmberg never forgot that Christmas, which always held something of the magical in her memories. It had brought her a treasured novel along with the understanding that the best gifts are the ones with meaning, and that sometimes, even in the darkest or stormiest moments, hope comes wrapped in unexpected packages.