"The Christmas Elvis" The Simple Things Magazine December Edition
The Christmas Elvis
In the fragrant kitchen, under a garland of twinkling fairy lights, Rose drops cloves, orange slices, star anise and cinnamon into a saucepan to make mulled wine. Beside her, on a stool, Bea is a Christmas angel in Rose’s too long apron and a halo of flour. Amid the mess of pastry and icing sugar, Rose heaves the box of decorations onto the kitchen table, and they begin.
Excitedly, Bea’s sugary fingers dive for the three kings she made out of clothes pegs with Granny: glued on crowns of tin foil and cheerful crayoned faces. Rose unwraps the hand blown glass bauble she brought back from her travels in Venice, years ago: before Ben, before Bea. They marvel at its beauty and hang it in the kitchen window to watch it spin in the pale winter sun.
Rose smiles as the shiny gold of Christmas Elvis appears in the tissue paper. She remembers when baby Bea had screamed and kicked her legs for the Christmas Elvis decoration in a London department store. It turned out to be their last Christmas all together. Rose had pushed the buggy swiftly outside, away down the starry Christmas streets to breathe the cold air. However, back at home, she had discovered the Elvis decoration stashed under the buggy. Both the Christmas Elvis and Bea’s bravado had become the stuff of family legend.
On their first Christmas together without Ben, the Christmas Elvis became a talisman for Rose and Bea. He shone down from the tree, casting a warm glow.
“ You could marry Christmas Elvis,” little Bea had suggested helpfully.
As Bea gets organised, Rose searches for the wooden snow family she bought from Bea’s first school Christmas Fair: children with hand painted hats and scarves, a mum and dad to watch over them, a sleigh pulled by huskies, some reindeers and fir trees- even a lone grey wolf to howl from a safe distance. Little Bea loved to play with them, pulling the sleigh around the snowy waste lands of the kitchen table, voicing their Christmas conversations. On long winter nights, when Little Bea was safely tucked up, Rose would catch herself, staring out at the winter skies, feeling childishly comforted by the family and their safe passage together through the snow.
Rose arranges the wooden snow family on the windowsill as Ben’s car draws up outside. Rose notices that something is missing: the children are on the sleigh, the fawns nuzzle with the deer, but the daddy has disappeared.
“ Bea, have you seen the….” she begins to say, but checks herself. She goes out with Bea to wave them off.
“Hang on!” Bea shouts and disappears inside, reappearing a minute later with her scarf and hat.
“See you in the morning,” Rose calls. Rose thinks about the little sleigh pulled by huskies, safely, over the snow.
Back inside the fairy-light lit house, Rose notices that Bea has returned the snow family daddy to the group. Gaudy and gold, however, beside the mother, in pride of place, stands Christmas Elvis. Rose takes the mince pies out of the oven and turns up the Christmas music. The doorbell rings.
She looks again, for a second, at the Christmas Elvis now at the heart of their little snow family. Still a family, travelling together safely through the snow, but welcoming someone new: someone bringing joy to Rose and Bea this Christmas.
Rose smiles and opens the door wide, “Happy Christmas!!”
Harriet Derioz @somewhereinsomerset is a writer who loves Christmas. Her simple thing is to sit by the fire with her doggo, Toots.
