Christmas Jars Read online

  “Thanks, Sis,” Adam offered. “You were always Mom’s favorite.”

  Terri threw a green velvet pillow from the love seat across the room, hitting Adam squarely in the head. He collapsed on the floor, rolling over in feigned agony.

  “All right, you two,” Dora stepped in. Frank was still engrossed in football. “How about you, JJ?” She turned to Jeff, the youngest Maxwell, who had gone by JJ since another boy also named Jeff moved in four years earlier with a reputation for setting fires on peoples’ doorsteps.

  “Oh, boy, ladies and gents, do I have one rocking Christmas planned!” The spunky seventeen-year-old swung his legs around the piano bench he had been straddling and launched into a popping, improvisational version of “Jingle-Bell Rock.” JJ was always onstage, even in his living room.

  Jingle-bell, Jingle-bell, Jingle-bell Rock,

  I’ve got a concert Christmas Eve.

  The senior jazz band is playing a show,

  And I’ll wear long sleeves!

  The gals will swooooon and the jocks will turn green,

  As we have a ball.

  The Broadway bigwigs will clap along,

  As we rock the mall!

  He laughed at his clever tune and played on, thinking of a second verse as his older brothers and sister tried not to encourage him with laughter of their own. It was no use.

  “Now, don’t encourage the boy,” Dad said from his recliner, his eyes fixed on the halftime show but his ears enjoying the sounds of an entire family back under the same roof, if even for only a few hours. “You’re a nutty bunch,” he yelled out. “Nuttier than a squirrel’s pantry.” He was a living, breathing book of bad jokes.

  The evening wore on comfortably, like favorite socks, and the pride and joy of Frank and Dora Maxwell said good night to their parents and set off on their independent ways. Another Thanksgiving had passed without incident. Good health, good humor, and good tradition were safely on their side.

  ~

  “I just love your mom,” Lauren said, kicking her shoes off, reclining back, and putting her feet on the dashboard.

  “That’ll pass,” Adam deadpanned.

  “She’s sweet, really genuine, you know?”

  “Genuinely batty? I concur.”

  “Genuinely your mother.Your mother, Adam.”

  “I’m kidding. It’s Thanksgiving humor. She’s a real doll.”

  “I have never, ever seen a family tease like yours does. Has it always been like that?”

  “Only since I was born, and I’m the oldest.” Adam let the joke set in. “Come on, L, it’s healthy.”

  “Whatever you say”—she smiled before even finishing—“Mr. Receding Hairline.”

  “Hey!”

  “It’s healthy, healthy!”

  “Shoulda seen that coming.” Adam changed the subject. “So, shopping tomorrow? It’s the first day of the season.”

  “I don’t know. The girls invited me, but it’s sure no fun without money.”

  “So spend a little,” he answered. “Why not?”

  “Right, spend money we don’t have; now that makes sense.”

  Adam and Lauren were the definition of frugal. A year before meeting Lauren and three full years before marrying her, Adam had opened a furniture restoration business. He called it Restored, Inc., and so far it provided a steady, though modest, income. Lauren managed the books and marketing; Adam did the restoring. He converted their single-car garage into a functional studio. It was filled with saws, sanders, hand tools, wood stains, brushes and brooms, and on some days the unmistakable smell of freshly cut, untreated wood. For Adam, the aroma was almost intoxicating.

  Lauren gathered and pulled her black hair over her right shoulder and into view. She rubbed her fingers around a dozen hairs, monitoring a few split ends. “How about something different?” She pulled a single hair from her head and began twirling it around her index finger. “How about we save a little and put a can, like a soup can or even an empty jar, on the counter. We put our change in it every night. Pocket change.”

  “And?” Adam was curious.

  “And we buy presents for one another with the money, whatever we save but not a penny more. It’s a limited budget. How much can we possibly save in a few weeks? Call it forced self-restraint.” She sounded like a financial planner.

  “Okay. I’ll bite. Let’s do it.” They shook on it, as if closing a business deal, and pulled into their driveway. As always, they had talked themselves all the way home.

  In the morning, Lauren washed out a near-empty jar of blackberry jelly and placed it on the counter by the phone. On it she painted “The Christmas Jar” in green and red model paint. On the bottom she added three letters: “ALM.” Adam and Lauren Maxwell.

  The days and weeks rolled on, and Christmas arrived, as always, before they were ready. They stopped work early on December twenty-fourth and emptied the jar on the kitchen table that Adam had made in high school.

  “Twenty-seven dollars and eighty-eight cents,” Lauren announced. “Not bad, huh?” She sounded as sheepish as she felt. “Sorry, Adam. I thought we’d find a little more.”

  “That’s crazy talk, L. It’s plenty. In fact, it’s perfect.” He rose from his chair and kissed her on top of the head. “You start rolling them and I’ll sneak to the couch for a nap. Wake me when you’re done.” He paused in the doorway, waiting for something to hit him from behind. It never came. He cautiously looked back, his eyes half-closed, and found her spinning a quarter on the table and mumbling to herself.

  “L?” Adam returned to his seat. “What’s wrong?”

  “Thirteen dollars and ninety-four cents. Each. That’s it. That’s not quite what I had in mind. That’s not much of a Christmas.”

  “Sweetheart, it’s plenty. It’s Christmas. Everything I ever wanted, everything I ever asked for, everything I’ve ever needed is sitting right here. Look, you wake up tomorrow morning healthy, smiling, and still speaking to me, and I’ll have the best Christmas ever.”

  “You’re a good man,” she answered with a frog in her throat.

  Adam reached across the table and scooped his half of the Christmas budget into the tail of his untucked shirt. “Let’s go shopping.”

  They drove to the nearest mega department store, parked in the farthest space, put on sunglasses they didn’t need, and synchronized their watches. Hand in hand, they weaved through the cars and in through the automatic doors. They split up, pockets bulging with change, off on a mission to buy their first-ever Christmas presents as a married couple. The plan was to buy them together, in the same cavernous store, but keep them hidden all the way home.

  Like cartoon spies, they bobbed and weaved around the store, in search of thirteen dollars’ worth of Christmas joy. At one point Adam hid under a rack of wool winter coats when Lauren got too close for comfort. Another time, just before their scheduled meet-up at the front doors, Lauren turned herself into a mannequin in the men’s sportswear department. Adam walked past, pretending not to see her and whistling the theme to Mission Impossible as he strolled by.

  At registers as far apart as physically possible, they counted out their Christmas Jar change, much to the chagrin of those behind them. With their gifts triple-bagged for privacy, they sped home and disappeared to opposite ends of the house to wrap. And Christmas Eve became Christmas morning.

  They slept until 9:00. By 9:10, Adam was mixing chocolate pancake batter in the kitchen.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Claus.” He pulled her chair out as she wiped sleep from her tired eyes. “What do you think, breakfast first? Or presents?”

  “Adam.” She seemed to disapprove. “A good breakfast is the most important part of the day.”

  He nodded his head and pivoted on his heels back to the kitchen counter.

  “But not today! Presents!” She pushed away from the table and raced into the family room.

  “Stop, you sneak!” Adam called and chased her, tackling her from behind and sending them bot
h into the base of the four-foot-tall Christmas tree. Adam caught it from falling with his right arm and pushed it back up, resetting it firmly into its plastic water base. “Just for that”—he was playfully stern—“I get to be Santa.”

  Lauren knew the routine; she had experienced a Maxwell Christmas two years before in the role of the visiting girlfriend and last year as the fiancée. Santa got to pull the presents from the tree, read the tag, and deliver them one at a time to the appointed spots. Lauren’s spot was on the couch.

  There were the gifts they had bought one another, a few from both sets of parents, and several from the siblings.

  “Me first,” Lauren said, pulling the tape off her first gift with great care. It was a pink tube of bubblegum lip gloss. She applied a thick coat and gave him a sloppy kiss on the cheek, leaving his dimple a greasy crater. “Perfect,” she declared.

  He opened his first gift, a pair of tomato-red reindeer socks with eyes, nose, and tiny foam antlers. “Yes!” he yelled and tossed the socks in the air. “I wanted these! I saw them on the ‘On Sale’ rack up front and crossed my fingers that one day we could meet again. Thanks, L.”

  Lauren’s next gift was a wooden, Western-themed picture frame. “Who’s the cutie on the horse, huh?” Lauren jabbed, referring to the blue-eyed, blonde model twirling a lasso and sporting a cheesy grin.

  “Just a girl I dated in college.”

  She whacked him with his own new sock before the sentence could settle. “You dated me in college,” she said with emphasis.

  “Oh, whoops.”

  Adam then opened a jumbo pack of razors, something he actually needed. He’d been shaving with an old one for two weeks too long. The excitement continued through the other assorted gifts, though never as rich as the moments they shared opening the ones from each other. “Great idea, L. Great idea.” They shared a long hug, and Adam returned to his pancake project.

  Later that afternoon they worked side by side on an armoire they had promised to have finished for a client by January first. They hand-sanded in rhythm and sang along to a paint-flecked portable stereo blaring the Beach Boys.

  For dinner they visited Adam’s parents. They feasted on ham, dressing, cheesy potatoes, and, of course, hot rolls. They hugged everyone twice and drove home. Lauren kicked off her shoes and wedged her feet up in between the windshield and the dashboard. She was wearing Adam’s reindeer socks.

  ~

  The season passed in harmony, and that was all they’d ever known to ask for. Spring was short, but summer dragged on longer than normal. As the dog days of August wore on, Lauren caught herself thinking of Christmas as she visited the grand opening of a new downtown boutique. She called her husband.

  “Hi, sweetie, what ya doin’?”

  “Working, dear. Getting set to finish the Myers’s dresser.”

  “Great! Right on schedule.”

  “What do you need, L? My hands are full.”

  “Nothing important. Just thinking about Christmas.”

  “You know we’ve not even seen September first yet, right?”

  “I know,” she assured him. “But think about it. Once you hit Labor Day, the rest is just around the corner.”

  Adam sighed and waited for whatever was up her sleeve.

  “I thought we might try the jar again this year, but earlier, you know, to save more money.”

  “Sure, that sounds smart. Let’s talk about it tonight.” Adam looked at his watch and felt the pressure of an afternoon melting into evening.

  “How about we start Labor Day weekend? Just pocket change. Just like last year.”

  “Labor Day it is. Now, get home soon. The studio misses you.” They hung up, and Adam, shaking his head, said aloud, “That girl’s nuttier than Dumbo’s pantry.”

  The Christmas Jar appeared back on the counter sometime in the early evening after a holiday barbeque of chicken and corn on the cob. As the holidays crept closer, and without ever conspiring to do so, Adam and Lauren began shopping with bills to generate more spare change.

  The morning of Christmas Eve they counted the change at the kitchen table before breakfast.

  “Sixty-two dollars, twenty-one cents,” Adam said, surprised by the total. “And lots more dimes this year than last.” They divided the money. “Thirty-one ten, and you get the extra penny, big spender.” He slid her share across the table. “We’ll go after lunch?”

  “After lunch,” answered Lauren, but both would spend every second before then thinking how best to stretch their fortunes.

  With too many coins to manage, and a desire not to make another round of cash register enemies, they stopped by the bank and had their Christmas Jar haul converted into bills. They drove to the shopping center, set a time limit, and split up. Forty-five minutes later they met at the car, gifts tucked under their coats. Arriving home, they wasted no time hiding at opposite ends of the house to do their wrapping.

  Christmas morning was familiar. They awoke, earlier than the year before, and skipped breakfast. Lauren crawled behind the six-foot-tall tree; it was her turn to be Santa.

  “Heeeads up!” Her voice rose high as she tossed a gift to his designated spot. In just a minute or two the gifts were evenly divided. They started with the in-law gifts, saving each other’s for last.

  When they got to the gifts from each other, Lauren unwrapped a much nicer picture frame than the year before, this time with their own wedding photo inside, and an ounce of perfume he’d seen her test on her wrists weeks before.

  Adam opened a package of designer dress socks and a popular but inexpensive electric rotary razor. “Perfect,” he said, inserting the accompanying batteries. He rubbed it quickly over his chin and grabbed her hand. “Smooooooooth!” The word dragged on for five seconds. “I’ll be more irresistible than ever.”

  Lauren batted her eyelids and lifted her picture frame. She and her handsome young groom stood beaming before a water fountain shooting high in the air and in a dozen different directions. “What did I get myself into?” she asked the eight-by-ten. “I’ve married a maniac.”

  After opening their gifts, they ate a cold-cereal brunch. It was another memorable Christmas. “Of all of them,” Adam teased, “this was absolutely, positively the very bestest.”

  On June first of the following year they decided over deep-dish pizza to work on having a child. They had been married eighteen months and saw no reason to wait. Adam raised his frosted root beer. “To our first—a beautiful, left-handed baby boy with a ninety-five-mile-an-hour fastball.”

  “To a healthy baby with ten fingers and ten toes,” she countered, knocking her mug into his.

  “Cheers!”

  Adam suggested they start their next Christmas Jar in July. “That gives us a few more months to save, buy some nice things for the baby, right?” She readily agreed. On July Fourth the jar was set in its usual place.

  A creative marketing plan with the local phone book boosted business that summer, and by the time the leaves fell, Restored was busier than ever. By Thanksgiving, the jar was nearly full. By Christmas Eve, coins were gingerly placed on top, rising slightly above the opening. Careful placement was all that kept several dollars’ worth of change from spilling onto the Formica counter.

  They counted before breakfast and were thrilled with just over one hundred dollars. “That’s a lot of spare change, L,” Adam said, piling the coins in high stacks around the table. Once again they visited the bank before heading to their now traditional department store. They agreed that with more money they would need more time. They settled on one hour and used every minute.

  Now in its third year, Christmas morning at the Maxwells’ home was becoming an institution. The tree—no longer an inexpensive artificial model—brushed the ceiling at eight glorious feet. Smells were sweeter, gifts ever more thoughtful, and memories carefully logged away into their most treasured places.

  Ten

  ~

  That’s quite a unique tradition.” Hope broke Adam�
�s rhythm, and suddenly all were transported from Adam’s entertaining tale back to their comfortable spots in the Maxwell living room. Hope baited him for more. “So every year you fill the jar and use the money to buy presents for one another? Your pocket change basically pays for Christmas?”

  “You’re half right,” Adam responded. “But Hannah over there put a kink in our plans. Didn’t you, darling?”

  She promptly buried her reddening face into her husband’s chest. “You can stop now, Dad.”

  “Oh, Hannah Banana, let him go,” her mother piped in. “Your father’s on a roll.”

  ~

  Lauren was finally pregnant and showing, and the anticipation of the arrival of Adam and Lauren’s first child was exhilarating. With another set of hands to open presents that year, they started their now-annual Christmas Jar on Easter weekend. Winter approached, and both became adept at accumulating change. Whenever possible, they asked for coins rather than small bills at convenience and drug stores, the post office, and so on. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas they were blessed with a stunningly perfect baby girl. They named her Hannah.

  Once again on Christmas Eve, Adam and Lauren emptied their jar on the kitchen table. “A new record,” Adam announced. “Two hundred fifty-five dollars and seventy cents.” They converted it to bills and trekked off for the ritual spree. That year they bought a few nice things for one another, but it was the baby that scored the biggest haul. They opened their packages and enjoyed a quiet Christmas afternoon as a family of three. That night, after dinner at Adam’s parents’, they decided that now with a child and a desire to create a lasting tradition, they would begin leaving the jar on the counter and fill it year round. They started December twenty-sixth, and their first full year yielded over four hundred dollars.

  Over the following years, the tradition became family law. Then after a miscarriage at eleven weeks, Lauren and Adam were surprised with not one but two identically perfect baby girls. Now with ample experience at hoarding change, and even more Maxwells to please on Christmas morning, they saw their once modest-sized jar grow from a jelly jar to a Mason jar to a giant dill-pickle jar that rose almost eighteen inches high.