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Christmas Eve Memory

Mark Pearce

    I’m sitting in my apartment with Christmas music playing softly in the background. The only illumination is the blue light from the Christmas tree and the orange glow of the fireplace. I’m looking at the snow outside my windows and thinking of my first Christmas Eve in Colorado, seven years ago.
    I had just moved to Colorado from Texas and had never experienced a genuine white Christmas. It began to snow as I drove to my sister’s home in Elizabeth. The holiday music on my radio took on a whole different feel as I passed the colorful light displays of people’s houses with their yards covered in snow and gentle white flakes falling all around.
    I arrived at my sister’s ranch house, and we all went to a beautiful candlelight service at the church around the corner. Afterwards, we drove around and looked at Christmas lights in the snow, then returned to her house for some hot chocolate and carols.
    After everyone went to bed, I decided to walk around in the snow. It was about 2 o’clock in the morning. It was a very silent night, and the wooded hills around my sister’s home were covered with a blanket of white.
    I suddenly heard a commotion to my right. A deer jumped over the fence and stopped and looked at me. Then two more jumped the fence. Then a big, regal buck walked around the corner of the house. Suddenly, the head of a little fawn popped up from behind the wood pile.
    Each of the deer would watch me for a moment, then go about its business. The only sound in the night was the crunching of their hooves in the snow. Then one of them turned and cantered up the hill and disappeared into the woods. Two of the others followed, with the buck taking the rear.
    I was alone with the fawn. I shifted my position and accidentally kicked a tin plate my sister had left out to feed her animals. The fawn popped up and began to spring toward the woods in leaps that made its legs appear to be made of rubber. I had never seen a deer leap like that before. I now understood how legends of flying deer could seem real at Christmastime. It was such a feeling of magic and wonder.
    In a few moments, I was alone in the silent snow beneath the stars.

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