"T'was the night after Christmas and all through the house, Not a creature was stirring not even a mouse. The presents are scattered and broken I fear, And St. Nicholas won't come again for a year," we used to sing in high school chorus as we finished the song, "The Night Before Christmas."
Well, it's the week after Christmas, and I have already lost my favorite gift: expensive leather gloves from my husband. I am sick about it. I'd been so careful to keep up with them on our trip, always tucking them in my purse or the inside pocket of my coat. It really wasn't cold enough to use them in Georgia, but it was terribly cold when we got home.
I had put the gloves on as we headed out in the frigid weather to buy groceries on Saturday, replenishing our stock that I had purposely depleted before our trip ten days before. It was warm in the car, and I remember taking the gloves off, but putting them on when we got out. I must have taken them off in the store, and, I assume, put them in my pocket or purse. But when I wanted to wear them to church Sunday morning, they were no where to be found!
"If I lost them at the grocery store, maybe they've been turned in to Lost and Found," I said hopefully to my husband yesterday. We needed a few things we had forgotten anyway, so we went back. Checking out, I noticed it was my favorite checker on duty, the sweet young lady that reminded me so much of one of our beautiful granddaughters in Georgia. She stopped her work to check a drawer of lost items, pulling out a pair of fleecy cotton gloves, then going to another register and finding a pair of men's gloves. She said they only put money or lost cards in the office, so apparently mine hadn't been turned in. I knew it was a long shot, anyway. They could have been picked up in the parking lot or kept by anyone.
I hadn't expected a present from Howard, since he took me Christmas shopping for myself early and bought me a coat, shoes and a robe. So on Christmas morning, when our daughter handed me two packages, I opened one and found a new book she knew I'd like. I thanked her and started to open the other box in her familiar wrapping paper, when she said, "That one's from Dad." O-oh, so that explained the suspicious activity in a store the day before when she slipped something to Howard and I thought I heard "Here's your card back." He'd had an accomplice in surprising me.
I hadn't bought him anything, so when we passed a jewelry counter, a tray of rings behind glass caught my eye. Howard had lost his wedding band a couple of years ago after wearing it some 53 years. He had placed it on a bedside table, he said, and when he thought about it days later, it was gone. Despite an exhaustive search, it has never been found. "Why don't you get a new wedding band?" I suggested. He found one he loved in our price range, and he is extremely pleased with it.
"Now I feel like I'm married," he teased. The next morning when he woke up and I heard him humming and singing snatches of a song I recognized as "Always," I said, "Do you realize that was our wedding song?" He said he hadn't remembered. It must have been in his subconscious, though. So even though he lost his original wedding band, and I lost my Christmas gloves, we are still banded together, hand in glove, as we welcome a new year tomorrow!
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