Chapter 22

Christmas Eve this year fell on a Sunday, allowing it to be a relatively lazy day for us, as neither of us had to work the following morning. We went out for breakfast and then to the regular Sunday morning church service, with plans to return later that evening for a Christmas Eve candlelight service.

The afternoon was spent with Christmas music drifting through the apartment as we sat on the couch together, reading. Lisa’s guilty pleasure is paperback romance novels, and she was working her way through one she had picked up a few days earlier. I, meanwhile, was reading the book I traditionally read on Christmas Eve: Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.”

Around 4:00, as the sun started to set, we headed out for an early dinner. Being Christmas Eve, there wasn’t a whole lot open. However, this is the South, and there’s always Waffle House, so that was where we ended up.

From there, we drove around Cary and Raleigh, looking at the various displays of Christmas lights in everyone’s yards. I even noted that a few people had put up luminaria, which was a tradition in the neighborhood where I grew up: a collection of little paper bags, weighed down with sand with a small tea candle burning inside. They were laid out along the edge of the street. Traditionally, luminaria are meant to light a path for the Christ child on Christmas Eve, who blesses the homes of those who light his way.

Even though it was still a little early, we headed over to the church, arriving around 6:30. The music minister, Jack, was there and was just finishing up a brief rehearsal with the choir.

He came over and hugged us both. “Merry Christmas, guys! Come to beat the rush?”

I surveyed the relatively-empty sanctuary and gave him a confused look. He explained, “Tonight we’ll actually be fairly full. This is the service where we see all the people who only show up twice a year, for Christmas and Easter.”

“Oh,” I said, a bit nonplussed. Changing the subject, I asked, “Is there anything we can help with to get you set up or anything?”

“Ah...” he whipped his head around. “No, no, we’re good. Thanks, though.”

True to Jack’s prediction, the church was nearly full by 6:55. We even helped him grab some extra folding chairs from the church hall so that people could sit. But shortly after 7:00, with everyone comfortably seated, lights were dimmed, candles were lit, and the singing began with “O Come All Ye Faithful.”

Immediately, the outside world faded away for me. The relentless commercialism, the crowds, the noise, the stress of being able to buy “just the right thing” for everyone and having enough money to do it ... it all disappeared. All that was left was the true reason for the season. And my beloved, sitting beside me and sharing it with me.

We returned to Lisa’s apartment after church, where, of course, the plan was for me to spend the night. We each had a few gifts for each other and had agreed to open one Christmas Eve and the rest the following morning.

I opened mine first. It was a set of Bluetooth headphones. I had mentioned that my earbuds tended to pop out of my ears at inopportune times, and I needed a different solution for listening to music while on the racecourse – preferably a wireless one, so the wires wouldn’t get caught on my leg.

She spied the small wrapped box under the tree and gave me a wary glance. I raised my hands in surrender and said, as reassuringly as I could, “I promise it’s not a ring. This time, anyway.”

She gasped in delight as she pulled out the pendant. “Oh, John...” she sighed. “Oh, this is beautiful. Here, can you put it on me?” She turned and presented her neck for me to wrap the chain around.

When I succeeded in putting it on, she turned back around and kissed me. “I have one more present. It’s in my room and it was a little big to wrap. Give me a few minutes to get it ready and I’ll call you in, okay?”

I shrugged. “Okay.”

I listened to her shuffling around behind the closed door for a few minutes, and then heard, “Okay!”

Bemused, I opened the bedroom door ... and froze.

Lisa was standing by the bed. She was wearing the pendant ... which stood out quite nicely against the emerald-green teddy I had seen in her drawer a few months earlier when she was sick.

She wore nothing else. Except for a green bow in her hair.

She walked slowly, seductively, over to the spot where I had come to a stop. She leaned down and kissed me softly on the lips. I could already smell her arousal.

In a quiet, seductive voice, she said, “I want to give you me for Christmas. All of me.”

She kissed me again.

“Please make love to me tonight.”

She began unbuttoning my shirt, slowly working her way down. When she got to the bottom button, her hands continued downward, unbuckling my belt and unsnapping my slacks. She lowered them and slid my shirt off, leaving my pants bunched around my ankles.

Pausing for a moment, she laughed briefly. “Well ... my grand plan forgot about needing to take your leg off. Come sit on the bed.”