The Secret Santa
By Maryellen Sullivan
This story occurred when my husband had been transferred from Massachusetts to Florida. We had already had several transfers, and I didn’t want to move again, especially since all my family is in Mass., and I had a job that I loved. We moved away from a small town that was truly a “Currier and Ives” setting at Christmas, from the town Christmas tree decorating to the candlelight processional from town center to the white steepled church. Florida was NOT a Christmasy setting as far as I was concerned!
About a month before the first Christmas that I had to spend in Florida, a large box with a postmark that I didn’t recognize arrived at my house. Inside was a beautiful balsam Christmas wreath that smelled of all the Christmas’s I’d ever known. No card, no identification to let me know where it came from. It remained a mystery. The next week, a second box arrived with mulling spices for cider, hot chocolate and a note from Secret Santa. A different strange postmark was on this box, still of a town where I didn’t know anyone.
Week three brought a “Christmas Traditions in New England” book from a third different town.
Week four brought a candle and “snowman making kit”.
It took a full year for me to finally discover that my friends at the job I left in Massachusetts got together to make sure I had a New England Christmas. They drove all over the state to mail the box from areas that I wouldn’t recognize, and each one I asked about it innocently denied any knowledge of the “plot” until they all decided to send me a note together. That Christmas left a “warm fuzzy” feeling for weeks, and even now makes me feel so loved and blessed when I speak of it almost 14 years later!
Thanks for helping me relive the warm fuzzy! Maryellen
By Maryellen Sullivan
This story occurred when my husband had been transferred from Massachusetts to Florida. We had already had several transfers, and I didn’t want to move again, especially since all my family is in Mass., and I had a job that I loved. We moved away from a small town that was truly a “Currier and Ives” setting at Christmas, from the town Christmas tree decorating to the candlelight processional from town center to the white steepled church. Florida was NOT a Christmasy setting as far as I was concerned!
About a month before the first Christmas that I had to spend in Florida, a large box with a postmark that I didn’t recognize arrived at my house. Inside was a beautiful balsam Christmas wreath that smelled of all the Christmas’s I’d ever known. No card, no identification to let me know where it came from. It remained a mystery. The next week, a second box arrived with mulling spices for cider, hot chocolate and a note from Secret Santa. A different strange postmark was on this box, still of a town where I didn’t know anyone.
Week three brought a “Christmas Traditions in New England” book from a third different town.
Week four brought a candle and “snowman making kit”.
It took a full year for me to finally discover that my friends at the job I left in Massachusetts got together to make sure I had a New England Christmas. They drove all over the state to mail the box from areas that I wouldn’t recognize, and each one I asked about it innocently denied any knowledge of the “plot” until they all decided to send me a note together. That Christmas left a “warm fuzzy” feeling for weeks, and even now makes me feel so loved and blessed when I speak of it almost 14 years later!
Thanks for helping me relive the warm fuzzy! Maryellen
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