Day Seven: Mistletoe

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I met Jessica when I was 23. I had been shopping in the local village and she was home from college for the holidays. She had beautiful long red hair and a laugh that just made you want to join in with her, not caring what you were laughing about, simply wanting to be part of the joy she carried around with her like a cloud, an aura.

Ours was a small community, and there were not many people our age, so it was only natural that she and I should talk to each other over mince pies and coffee after the Christmas service. She told me what a marine biologist did, and how she wanted to travel, and how magical life was under the sea, and I listened to this girl who flew as she spoke and I smiled to know that the world was bigger than I had ever experienced.

We admired the decorations around the church; each picked and placed by a particular family. Here were the crib figures, donated many years ago before the big house became a hotel. There, the holly that Billy Smith still collected from the forest each year as his father and grandfather had done before him. And over the door, in pride of place, the mistletoe that Fred Quinn was the guardian of. No matter how harsh or mild the winter, Fred had supplied mistletoe to the church for 50 years, no one knowing where he hunted for the plant.

We kissed; softly, gently. For the first time in many years, I did not hate Christmas.