“Pob lwc.” the elder of Saint Joseph’s had wished me, after his strange warning. I presumed he meant for my first Mass to be held, as traditional, at Midnight on Christmas Eve. It went well, the service, with a fuller than expected attendance, to see the ‘new man’, I presumed.
Later, sat still in just the candle light, I sighed, thinking I’d found a final home. It was then that the Bwgan Fawr sighed too. A man of middling years, he seemed, from one of the middling centuries, but as translucent as chip paper fat.
He pointed at the great...
”Beware the Bwgan Fawr.” the old Vicar sighed. “Every chapel has to have its ‘Ysbryd capel’…”
“Its chapel ghost?” the younger clergyman replied. His pronunciation was still more ‘gog’, more Northern, than the man he was replacing felt comfortable with. Too… foreign. If such a phrase could be used for a fellow Welshman.
A shame, his body was found the morning after his first Midnight Mass. Just outside the chapel door, lying as if it had carried a great weight across the threshold, and then collapsed with the release of his burden. A heart attack, they said. Strange in someone...
Midnight on the Roof. That's where he'll be. I know Santa Claus is real. I know that because he's my Dad.
It was small things at first. I made a list:
1) A wistful smile on Mum's lips each Christmas Eve.
2) The way she hummed "I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus" without noticing.
3) The fact we ALWAYS put out cookies and beer for him before Christmas Day. And a carrot for Rudolf.
4) My last real memory of him dressed in his large red gown and hat with white fur trim telling Mum he had to go. His...
Black and white. I couldn't believe Dad had done it again.
I know I'm lucky, I do. You can say I'm spoiled if you like, but it doesn't matter - I'd asked for ONE THING this Christmas, and it was colour.
I looked up at my father, tried to fake a smile, and said 'Thanks'. As soon as he turned away, I rolled my eyes, and unwrapped my next present.
A sweater. Great. I wondered what colour it was - if I went out wearing this and one of my friends actually GOT what she asked for and could see...
Leaves golden and red. A New York fall is among us. Chill to the air and inevitably the snow will be coming soon. Rushing to stores for turkey and stuffing, then rushing to the store for last minute gifts for loved ones. The red and gold leaves change to red and gold Christmas ornaments. The colors of fall and the colors of winter.
Holidays in New York are unlike any other anywhere. Snow blowing, chilly air, hustling, bustling, rushing, racing. Decorating for Christmas on Thanksgiving night, playing music, eating leftover turkey while baking cookies. The movie 'Elf' on in the...
First communion with the devil that is my Daddy. In order to understand, you've got to start at the end and look back over your shoulder into the madness with a mirror, handheld and cracked.
My tombstone reads "murdered" and my family is convinced that is the truth but the truth reads like one novel to some and a short story to others and the weather girl reads it yet again a different way. It was Christmastime in Savannah and he was drunk again, or still, as it were, and there was the gun and then the fight spilled out...