"Christmas Garden" (Part 1 of 2)

 

Christmas Garden!

 

 

 

 

Again, they sat contented, enjoying a rhythmic to and fro of the glass window-encased gazebo swing.

Finally, when moisture trapped in one of the cedar logs boiled to eruption, sending an exploding red fireworks rocket shower of sparks ascending the stone chimney, he broke the silence of the tender moment to answer her initial query.

“A Christmas Garden!” He began, now suddenly excited to tell the tale as she waited, expectantly. Nanny knew that look in his eyes; this was going to be good. She just knew it.

“The little girls actually came up with the idea. Well! Let’s say that they planted the seed and “A funny thing,” the old man thought, aloud. “A Christmas Garden!” He shook his head at the very incongruity of such imagined fantasy. An “oxymoron” in the modern lexicon within a world of “hip” and “in”; the “sophisticated” inhabitants. Even, at that, he laughed audibly at his own self-chastisement of supposed convicted ineptitude where the “younger” generation, now marked by one of the latter alphabet symbols, was concerned.

“What are they going to do when they run out of letters?” he wondered. “‘Z’ would denote the very next generation. Then, What? Generation---‘AA’?” He laughed, aloud. “Like the battery bunny, I guess. It just keeps going and going and going!”

“Bapa! Bapa!” Came Nanny’s exasperated admonition. “You date yourself, terribly, my husband. That commercial last ran in the eighties; that, old-Son! was a long time ago.”

“I do believe, dear wife of mine, that it was decidedly, the nineties! If you so please,” he teasingly interrupted by way of hopeful correction; never purposely undermining her priviledge..

Unflustered at his attempted override, more through repetitive numbing habit than any concentrated concerted focus, she was quite used to his antics and anomalies, she quipped, “And, perhaps you make a point. Perhaps? But, for sure, the ‘hip’ and ‘in’ of which you speak quite so casually, is now, in the modern exacerbated text, ‘Cool!’” She gave him a curt nod.

“Well! Now.” He smiled. “So, at last, we come to the very issue, do we not?” He teased, good naturedly. “That triteness, “Cool!’ I do recall belonged exclusively to the---‘Sixties!’”

He gave a protracted nod of his own making and embellished the word with an exclamation.

“Touché!” he proclaimed, meaning to put an end to the good humor which seemed to threaten his very authority on the matter; at least, in his own eyes.

“What’s old is new, again.” Nanny finished as a courtesy to his domain. She smiled, but did not look at him.

He mulled that over, a bit. Then, “Did you just get the best of me?” He queried.

“Me…?” came the reply, her tone appalled that he might even think such a possibility.

At that seemed acquiescence; Bapa smiled.

When she whispered a hushed, “…Again!” He frowned, but wisely let it drop.

Softly, he squeezed her hand and said, “I love you!”

Leaning over to kiss his cheek, she returned his tenderness in echoed, “I love you, too.”

They sat quietly, then. Moving slowly to the rhythmic charm of the porch swing which Bapa had brought into the gazebo at mid-October for their winter enjoyment. There were days, to be sure, when the temperature and apportioned sunshine made utilization of the adornment when hung on the front porch, pleasant enough for the cold season, but, bringing it into the enclosed yard decoration provided many more opportunities for enjoyment. Floor to ceiling windows and a wood-burning stove within the enclosure made for a snug and romantic venue on a cold season’s night; one just such as this. Thanksgiving was in the offing and a chill nip greeted the quiet autumn evening purple-promise of peaceful darkness-rest upon the frozen calm.

After a while, Nanny broached the question, the point of which had raised her curiosity but had been lost in the good humored banter over colloquialisms between the couple.

“What was that were you mumbling about a ‘Christmas Garden’?” she prodded.

He released her hand and put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close.

“Oh! I guess I was just thinking out loud. You know. I have been accurately accused of that annoying penchant, before,” he teased, poking her gently in the side; she giggled like a school girl flirting with her beau. “I love when you laugh,” he offered and nudged her ribs, again.

“Bapa! Stop!” she murmured, demurely inviting more. “What will the neighbors think.”

He looked around in amazement. “Neighbors?!” he mocked, stymied. “Nearest human is a mile to the road and another four to town.” He shook his head. Then, he laughed. “Oh! You must mean the dogs or the cat, maybe the horses. Perhaps the deer or coyotes?”

At that, she lovingly slapped his knee.

“Hey! Now! Dear lady,” he grudged, frowning playfully. “You do that again and I’ll give those pesky, nosy neighbors something to write home about.” Then, he kissed her gently.

Now that fantasy had germinated and promised to grow to fruition in a full-fledged imagined design-apparition, he had his captive audience interested in his developing plan.

“We could take this gazebo and make it the centerpiece of the garden. Oh! It’ll have to be expanded, improved. This original part will be the center; I’ll move the fireplace to the middle, make a circular firebox, vent it through the apex of the roof.

“I figure the finished structure might be about three times its present size; maybe a bit more.”

 

(Part 2 of 2---tomorrow)