Christmas Tree, 2021

Yesterday afternoon, after a tiring bout of shopping and schlepping, we came home to find that naughty Mrs. C. had been undressing the Christmas tree.  Or maybe she was just foolin’ around.  It’s always hard to tell.

Quite a bit of tinsel and two precious (sentimentally, not monetarily) ornaments were on the floor — “Uncle Al’s” pear — for our partridge tree he said in 1964 — and the delicate glass toy trumpet that I believe had once belonged to Charlie’s father.  They didn’t look any more damaged than they have been for many years, but they had certainly left their moorings and were forlornly nestled together on the carpet.  They were surrounded by quite a bit of tinsel, as if Mrs. C. wanted to make a statement.  The rest of the tree was perfect — just as the Christmas elves, John and Steve, had left it the previous evening.

Mrs. Crouch’s handiwork?

After a word or two with (actually, more “at” than “with”) Mrs. Crouch, I set about putting things to rights and noticed that one of the doors of Papa’s “Barrister Bookcase” was wide open.  Never before has Mrs. C. shown an interest in the heavy tombs housed there — my grandfather’s “law books” that he used for reference during his many years as Justice of the Peace here.  I knew immediately that Reverend Crouch, himself, is back in the house — perhaps trying for a get-together with his bride of 1889.  After all, almost immediately after hightailing it out of Oysterville in 1893, he became an attorney in San Francisco!

Really, Reverend!

I had a few words for him, too, you betcha!  The idea of returning to Oysterville and trying to make amends after having married at least eleven more times…  to say nothing of the unanswered questions about the marks around Mrs. C.’s neck!  Was he checking out Papa’s law books to make sure the statutes of limitations for his many  transgressions were long past?

I do hope that the two of them sort it all out — but quietly and without causing Christmastime havoc here in the old parsonage.  Now, so long after their own Christmas spent here in 1892, perhaps they can let bygones be bygones.  ‘Tis the season…