A Christmas Story

  “Ryan, come in here and give me a hand.” Ryan’s dad, Dave, called out from the kitchen.

As she walked in to see what he wanted her to do, Dave was laying two filthy stainless-steel horse bits on a brown paper sack that he had placed on the kitchen table. Ryan had been around horses her whole life and was not easily grossed out by anything that had to do with them. She’d washed the sweaty animals after long rides, cleaned out dirty horse hooves and even shoveled plenty of manure, but those bits on the table were nasty looking. “Dad they’re gross, what are you going to do with them.”

  “We are going to clean them.” He pulled old toothbrushes and rags out of the bag he was holding and finally a round tin of metal polish.

  “Why didn’t you just get new ones?” Ryan asked her dad, but she was already organizing things neatly on the table to help him. She always wanted to be with her dad, even if it meant cleaning tarnish and disgusting horse slobbers off of a used bit.

  “New ones are expensive, and besides there’s joy in working hard to have something nice.” Dave put his hand on her shoulder then pulled out the chair for her to sit next to him.

  Ryan shrugged and picked up the smaller of the two bits. One was for a horse and one a pony. Ryan didn’t know for sure, but she assumed one was for her small horse, Jupiter. He wasn’t a pony, and she hated it when people called him that. He was a horse—just a little horse. She also assumed the other one was for her dad’s horse, Sundance Kid.

  “So you want to help me?” He asked her.

  “Yeah.”

  “How about, yes dad.”

  “Yes dad.” She knew how he hated it when she said yeah, but at twelve years old hanging around all her friends who talked like that…well sometimes she forgot.

  “So here’s what you do.” Her dad dunked the two horse bits in the bowl of soapy water he had on the table and started scrubbing with a toothbrush. Together, after about an hour of elbow grease and sharing two cups of coffee both bits were shiny and sparkling brighter than if he had bought them brand new.

  “Now that’s what I call good work. Your bit looks very nice. Good work Ryan.” He patted her on the back, and then she helped him put everything away.

  Three days later was Christmas Eve. Ryan paced back and forth from the big bay window in the front of their small ranch style home to the back door that opened into the garage waiting for her dad to get home. They always opened Christmas presents on Christmas Eve, and she had been waiting all day. The third time she passed in front of her mother, Mary, to check the back door again she scolded Ryan and told her to just sit down and wait.

  “You know your dad will want to eat before we open presents, so you just need to relax.”

Ryan plopped herself down in her dad’s oversized recliner with a harrumph. How was she to stand waiting until after dinner? She started to get up again only seconds after she sat down, but her mother’s eyes burned into her from across the living room, so she leaned back in the large chair and it swallowed her up. But then she heard her dad’s Chevy pickup pull into the garage, and she slammed the leg rest of the old recliner back into position. “Dad’s home,” she announced the obvious as she ran to the back door.

  Despite the winter cold, Ryan stood in her sock feet on the back step waiting for her dad. When he climbed out of the truck she yelled. “Hi dad.”

  “Hi Ryan, are you waiting on something?” Dave teased his daughter.

  “Just waiting for you to get home.”

  “Oh you’re happy to see your old dad, hmm?” He carried his black plastic lunch pail in one hand. It was the same lunch pail he had used for as long as Ryan could remember. It had a little strip of red plastic tape under the handle with his name embossed on it. In the other hand, he had a large shoe box—the kind work boots came in. “Get in the house. You’re going to catch your death standing out here without shoes.” He maneuvered the lunch pail under his arm and grabbed her around the waist and pulled her tight to him. She smelled the faint fragrance of the Old Spice he had put on first thing this morning and the strong scent of pine. He was a carpenter, and he always smelled like fresh cut wood.

  Once they got in the house, he sat the box on the table and began to pull off his winter work clothes layer by layer while Ryan hovered over the box.

  Finally she asked, “What’s in the box?”

  “Oh you’re curious about that?” He was still pulling off his boots. “Help me with my boots, and we’ll see if it might be a present for a good girl.”

  She scurried to the floor and sat down on her bum and began to tug on his leather work boots. “It’s a Christmas present? But it’s not even wrapped.” She crinkled her nose. “It’s for me?”

  “Have you been good?” He asked her.

  “Yes dad.” She replied remembering her manners.

  With both boots off, she jumped back up and put her hands on the top of the box. “Can I open it now?”

  “You’ll have to ask your mom if you can open this one first.”

  Ryan ran into the living room bounding with each step. “Mom, can I open the present dad has for me.”

  Her mom got up and followed Ryan in the kitchen, and she mother looked over at Ryan’s dad.   Without a word exchanged Mary shrugged and Dave told Ryan she could open it. “But be careful it might jump out at you.”

  “What?” Ryan squealed. “There’s something in there that’s going to jump out?” She backed away from the box. “You open it.” She looked up pleading at her dad. Ryan had a terrible fear of snakes, and for no reason at all that was what she imagined was in that box.

  “No, you have to open your own present.” He said as if that should be apparent to everyone.

Ryan moved back to the box and touched the lid, and at the same time, her dad thumped the side of it. She jumped back again. Tears formed in her eyes, and she looked at her mom. “Will you open it?”

Mary had already started working on dinner. “No, honey. You open it. He’s teasing you.”

  “Dad, I’m scared.” She stood about a foot away from the box and didn’t move.

  “Oh, come on now. I was just teasing; nothing is going to jump out.” But no matter what he said, she wouldn’t believe him now, and as badly as she wanted to see inside that box, she couldn’t make herself open it.

  “Okay,” her dad finally said after attempting everything he knew to reassure her. “I’ll open it. Come up here and let’s see what’s inside.” He pushed her closer to the box, and she closed both eyes so tight it hurt. Even after the lid was removed she stood with her eyes closed and her hands clinched tight. “Open up, Ryan.” He was laughing at her now.

  Finally Ryan slowly opened her eyes. “A bridle!” She screamed. A brand new leather bridle was laid out inside the box. The rich dark burgundy colored leather was flawless with decorative white stitching. She picked up the two long reins that were coiled up neatly in the corner and touched the smooth cowhide to her face and then held it under her nose to smell the new leather. At the end of those reins was a bright shiny bit. She ran her fingers across the cold stainless-steel and smiled. “Dad, it’s the bit we cleaned.”